Multi Operating system boot (run out of primary partitions!)

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

See below.

Thanks Pegasus, this is going way beyond the call of duty

OK I cleared up my business partition (just wasn't assigning drive
letters correctly).
I haven't tackled BOOT.INI yet.

OK this one's interesting. Partition Magic shows all my Volume labels
nicely. The two OS's I can boot up from (Business and Sound Studio)
show the volume labels in the disk manager. They all seem to be there.
Good.

When boot up XOSL, goto the hiding partitions, the only volume labels I
can see are:
Dell Utility
Temp
Boot

AFAIK, XOSL will only show formatted partitions.

Otherwise all the volume labels are blank.

When I boot up from a DOS disk and run ptedit.exe. I can't see where I
would see any volume labels at all. I click "Goto EPBR" followed by
"Boot Record" (if available) continiously. So slightly taken aback as
to selecting the right volume.

Your disk labels are visible in the Boot Record screen. It's one
of the last fields on the screen.

 

[postings]

Thanks Pegasus

This is really weird. When I click on Boot record, nothing will happen
on some of the NTFS partitions (even though the button is not greyed
out).

I can click on boot record on some of the NTFS partitions (not many at
all), but there is no volume label field (and hence no volume label
name) to see on an NTFS "boot record".

However with partitions "Temp" and "Boot", I can click on the Boot
record button, and I can see the volume label and it's field quite
clearly (no problems). PTEDIT seems to show FAT32 boot record volume
labels clearly. So I know what to look out for here.

Very odd... I'm now investigating into better partition table editors.

Maybe something to do with having a 250GB SATA HD? Wonder if PTEDIT can
cope with this hard disk. You would have thought so wouldn't you ?

Ta

Alex

 

[postings]

Stop press the version of PREDIT on:
(ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/­english_us_canada/tools/pq/uti­lities/)
is defective for large disks. I thought things were slightly weird
here.

The version of PTEDIT on the Partition Magic 8 disk appear to work
normally.
The only problem is I cannot see the volume label field for NTFS
partitions. I can see the volume label field for FAT32 however (i.e.
"Temp" and "Boot" labeled partitions").

I know the layout of my paritions and sizes, however as you say it is
difficult to see which partition is the right one without the right
volume label information... I can't seem to transpose the information I
have with the information shown on PTEDIT.

Hmmm....

Cheers!

Alex

 

[postings]

Right I have a workaround. I can't see the volume labels field on the
NTFS partitions. Soi I'll just use the volume serial number (which I've
got from PM 8) to identify the partition instead. So onwards we go.

Pegasus next Q (sorry!):

d) Locate the field "Hidden Sectors". Its value is 63.

Yep got that.

e) Set this value to the sector number shown at the very top of the

screen. It is a very large number!

Would you mind expanding here and telling me exactly what field this
is, which screen (is it the same screen showing hidden sectors?), and
whether it is to the left or to the right (I know it's at the top). I
just don't want to get the wrong field at this stage of the game!

Also do the same instructions apply to all the logical partitions I
want to boot?

Cheers

Alex

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Right I have a workaround. I can't see the volume labels field on the
NTFS partitions. Soi I'll just use the volume serial number (which I've
got from PM 8) to identify the partition instead. So onwards we go.

Pegasus next Q (sorry!):

Yep got that.

screen. It is a very large number!

Would you mind expanding here and telling me exactly what field this
is, which screen (is it the same screen showing hidden sectors?), and
whether it is to the left or to the right (I know it's at the top). I
just don't want to get the wrong field at this stage of the game!

Also do the same instructions apply to all the logical partitions I
want to boot?

Cheers

Alex

The number is not in a field: It's on the frame of your screen!
You must apply it to every bootable logical drive.

 

[postings]

Set this value to the sector number shown at the very top of the

screen. It is a very large number
The number is not in a field: It's on the frame of your screen!
You must apply it to every bootable logical drive.

Thanks Pegasus once again!

I'm very sorry I'm still confused as to exactly which number you mean.
When you say frame of my screen, do you mean the blue title bar, if
that's the case, it's on the previous screen (not the boot screen).
What exactly does this number signify?

I think I may have to upload some screenshots to my website next week
for you to view (I'm away from that particular PC today), too sunny to
go to work today

Many thanks!

Alex

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I don't quite see what your problem is. When I look at my
Boot Record under ptedit.exe, then it says at the top of the
screen in the frame: "FAT32 Boot Record at sector 345678".
This is the number to insert into the "Hidden Sectors" field!

 

[postings]

I can now see the problem clearly...

If I'm looking at a FAT32 partition with PTEDIT I can see the volume
label field and "FAT32 Boot Record at sector xxxx" on the window title
bar, just like you say Pegasus.

However the boot record is displayed differently with PTEDIT and NTFS
partitions. I can idenfify the partition using the volume serial number
instead, so identify the partition is no longer an issue.

I need to find out how to get the beginning sector information with
boot record for the NTFS partitions....
In a nutshell PTEDIT will display the boot records of a NTFS partition
in an entirely different way compared to a FAT32 partition.

*************
STOP PRESS!...
*************

The answer is to use PTEDIT32 for Windows... does all this, esp the
version on the partion magic 8 CD.

** One final question please Pegasus!!!! **

How do I label BOOT.INI partition number with a logical partition?
There's an extended partition to factor out here.

My Partition structure begins like this:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

* Dell Utility (Primary) (Permantently hidden, not bootable)

* Business XP (Primary) - Bootable, definately Partition 2 in BOOT.INI.

* Sound Studio XP (Primary) - Bootable. definately Partition 3 in
boot.INI.

**** Extended Parition (Primary) *****

* Multimedia XP (Logical) - Is this Partition 4 or Partition 5 in
boot.ini?
(considering there is an extended partition that may/may not count)

* Games XP (Logical) - - Is this Partition 5 or Partition 6 in
boot.ini?
(considering there is an extended partition that may/may not count)

etc...
-----------------------------------------------------------------

I am guessing the extended partition does factor into this, and
therefore Multimedia = 5 (not 4) and Games = 6 (not 5).
Therefore BOOT.INI has to be edited accordingly on each logical
partition - Am I right?

I'm also going to have to make sure I have different SID's on each
partition with GHSTWLK. But that's the easy bit.

Cheers

Alex

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

The "extended" partition does not count when it comes to
numbering your partitions.

 

[postings]

Pegasus...

Thank you so much for your help
Expect an email from me soon.

Many thanks

Alex
..

 

[postings]

HI Pegasus

Tried to mail you through google, didn't work. Would you mind mailing
me personally? (Up to you).
I'd like to offer you an Amazon voucher as a "token" gesture for you
efforts (don't know which region you are based).
Your advice has been incredibly useful and given me exactly what I
wanted.

Thanks

Alex