2 XP installations and invisible drives???

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joker
  • Start date Start date
J

Joker

Hi,

does anybody know how to install two different installations of WinXP (one
on C: and one on E: ?) and how to make these two drives (C: and E:)
invisible / unaccessible from the other installation. I'd like to have one
work-environment with firewalls etc. and one for gaming on-line and stuff
like that without the firewall and virus scanners. These two partitions must
not see each other at any time for security reasons. Is this possible and if
it is, how do I set it up?

regards,

Joker
 
Joker said:
does anybody know how to install two different installations of WinXP (one
on C: and one on E: ?) and how to make these two drives (C: and E:)
invisible / unaccessible from the other installation. I'd like to have one
work-environment with firewalls etc. and one for gaming on-line and stuff
like that without the firewall and virus scanners. These two partitions must
not see each other at any time for security reasons. Is this possible and if
it is, how do I set it up?
Click to expand...

This is easy to do with a third-party boot manager. See if my page at
www.goodells.net/multiboot helps you understand the process. Every
machine in my house multiboots, even the kids' machines are dualbooting
for just the purpose you're looking at -- one partition (called
"Trusted" on the boot menus) for normal use, complete with access to
files and printers on the home lan, and another partition (called
"Untrusted") for games, kazaa, and the like, with internet access but
locked out of the home lan. The Untrusted partition periodically gets
refreshed from a DriveImage backup of the virgin Untrusted partition,
just to get rid of the garbage that periodically accumulates there.
 
This does not work if you have two copies of XP in two
separate bootable partitions managed by (e.g.) bootmagic.
The problem is that XP is bright enough (? joke ?) to look
for other partitions whether in extended partitions or
not, and it appears to replicate some? registry
information into the the other partitions.

I created two XP boot partitions successfully for similar
reasons to Joker - mine was that I need a stripped down
version for video editing (so that there was minimal
background activities) and a full version with all my apps
on - but I found that information about the DVD drives was
being modified in the stripped version's registry when I
made changes to the DVD handlers in the full version.

I used Partitionmagic 7 (make sure you have rev 303) to
create an NTFS partition, made it active and then
installed XP on it. Once I had fully configured just the
basic XP and activated it, I used Partitionmagic again to
make a copy into a separate partition. So far all well,
and both partitions booted fine. I then loaded my video
software onto one XP (stripped version) and it all worked
fine. I then loaded all the rest of my software including
Nero 6 onto my full version, and this is where the problem
started. Both booted OK, but the installation of Nero
resulted in registry changes being made that stopped the
stripped one from working. The issue is variously
highlighted in articles in MS knowledgebase and Pinnacle
knowledgebase if you search for lowerfilter or
upperfilter. I have never been able to get the video
stuff working again.

Going back to Joker's issue, then I also require that the
two partitions are TOTALLY isolated from each other. He
needs it for "security reasons".

What is even more scary is that when I screwed up the
registry on one copy so that it would no longer boot, I
thought to myself, no worries I can boot up off the second
copy. But the same registry error has been replicated
there, so I now have a totally dead machine.

Before I rebuild - does anyone have an insight into this
problem, and able to tell me how to keep all copies of XP
immune from each other!
 
So it seems that this thing is harder to do than it should. If it's possible
at all... My "security reasons" are that I don't want to get viruses /
trojans into the company system, but I would like to use the laptop for more
"fun stuff" from home. That is why I require the systems to be completely
invisible to each other. This is certainly not the first time some microsoft
application would outsmart itself by "knowing what you want" and messing
itself up completely. But let us not be pessimistic and let's hope someone
out there has the solution to this problem.

In the mean time I will try "I'm Dan":s sollution. It can take a while
before I can present any results since I am in the middle of a busy period
doing other things.

/joker
 
peter gardner said:
I created two XP boot partitions successfully for similar
reasons to Joker - mine was that I need a stripped down
version for video editing (so that there was minimal
background activities) and a full version with all my apps
on - but I found that information about the DVD drives was
being modified in the stripped version's registry when I
made changes to the DVD handlers in the full version.

I used Partitionmagic 7 (make sure you have rev 303) to
create an NTFS partition, made it active and then
installed XP on it. Once I had fully configured just the
basic XP and activated it, I used Partitionmagic again to
make a copy into a separate partition. So far all well,
and both partitions booted fine.
...(snipped)...
... when I screwed up the registry on one copy so that
it would no longer boot, I thought to myself, no worries
I can boot up off the second copy. But the same
registry error has been replicated there, so I now have
a totally dead machine.

Before I rebuild - does anyone have an insight into this
problem, and able to tell me how to keep all copies of XP
immune from each other!
Click to expand...

It wasn't replicating registry entries in the alternate registry, you
were actually using the same single registry under both boot options.
There are a couple "features" of XP that can trip you up, regardless of
whether you use PartitionMagic, BootIt, Ghost, DriveImage, or anything
else. Almost everyone who complains that such-and-such copy/clone
utility didn't work is being tripped up by XP, not by the utility. One
issue is that the NT-family OS's use a boot.ini file in the active
startup partition that must point to the partition where XP is running
from. The other issue is that NT-family OS's "remember" drive letters
by recording the "signatures" of the corresponding partitions in the XP
registry. For all the gory details of what is going on, see my webpage
at www.goodells.net/multiboot.

In your case, starting from scratch you would use PartitionMagic to
create an active bootable NTFS partition and install XP1.

Now we need to force XP to forget the remembered drive letters and
partition signatures before we clone it. Boot into XP1 and run regedit
from the Start|Run menu. Navigate to the registry key
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\MountedDevices]. Delete all the
"\??\Volume{...}" and "\DosDevices\..." entries, leaving just the key
and "Default" entry. (XP will rebuild this table the next time it
boots.)

Now shut down and run PM from outside Windows (from CD or PM's "rescue
floppies") -- do not boot back into XP1 because we don't want it to
rebuild the registry key yet. Using PM, copy part.1 to part.2, set
part.2 active and part.1 hidden. Now reboot and part.2 should boot and
rebuild the partition signatures in its registry.

At this point, you should have two completely independent installations,
one active and the other hidden. To toggle the active/hidden status,
run PM from CD or floppy and flip back and forth between each partition.
Alternately activate each partition and reboot into it to check that
each XP is working properly. Give each partition a different volume
label (such as "XP1" and "XP2") to help keep track of which is which.
Look in XP's Disk Management service and although it will "see" both
partitions, only one should have a drive letter. You should see
something similar to:
XPA (C:) NTFS Healthy (System)
XPB NTFS Healthy (Unknown Partition)
Depending on which partition you've activated, one or the other will be
C: and the other will be a "Unknown Partition". To confirm you're using
different registries, change the desktop wallpaper and confirm the
change does not carry over to the other installation. Look at each
partition's boot.ini file and they should be using different ARCpaths --
e.g., "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)" vs
"multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)".

If all is well, you can install BootMagic. (I don't use BM, but I
thought it wouldn't install on a NTFS partition. Since you didn't seem
to have trouble with it, I'll assume you don't need help with BM.)
 
Thanks for this, I'll give it a try.

I actually have a small dos partition in which I run
bootmagic plus a few "rescue" utilities just in case.
With the "reliability" of windows, I rarely need such belt
and braces!!!

:-)

-----Original Message-----

peter gardner said:
I created two XP boot partitions successfully for similar
reasons to Joker - mine was that I need a stripped down
version for video editing (so that there was minimal
background activities) and a full version with all my apps
on - but I found that information about the DVD drives was
being modified in the stripped version's registry when I
made changes to the DVD handlers in the full version.

I used Partitionmagic 7 (make sure you have rev 303) to
create an NTFS partition, made it active and then
installed XP on it. Once I had fully configured just the
basic XP and activated it, I used Partitionmagic again to
make a copy into a separate partition. So far all well,
and both partitions booted fine.
...(snipped)...
... when I screwed up the registry on one copy so that
it would no longer boot, I thought to myself, no worries
I can boot up off the second copy. But the same
registry error has been replicated there, so I now have
a totally dead machine.

Before I rebuild - does anyone have an insight into this
problem, and able to tell me how to keep all copies of XP
immune from each other!
Click to expand...

It wasn't replicating registry entries in the alternate registry, you
were actually using the same single registry under both boot options.
There are a couple "features" of XP that can trip you up, regardless of
whether you use PartitionMagic, BootIt, Ghost, DriveImage, or anything
else. Almost everyone who complains that such-and-such copy/clone
utility didn't work is being tripped up by XP, not by the utility. One
issue is that the NT-family OS's use a boot.ini file in the active
startup partition that must point to the partition where XP is running
from. The other issue is that NT-family OS's "remember" drive letters
by recording the "signatures" of the corresponding partitions in the XP
registry. For all the gory details of what is going on, see my webpage
at www.goodells.net/multiboot.

In your case, starting from scratch you would use PartitionMagic to
create an active bootable NTFS partition and install XP1.

Now we need to force XP to forget the remembered drive letters and
partition signatures before we clone it. Boot into XP1 and run regedit
from the Start|Run menu. Navigate to the registry key
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\MountedDevices]. Delete all the
"\??\Volume{...}" and "\DosDevices\..." entries, leaving just the key
and "Default" entry. (XP will rebuild this table the next time it
boots.)

Now shut down and run PM from outside Windows (from CD or PM's "rescue
floppies") -- do not boot back into XP1 because we don't want it to
rebuild the registry key yet. Using PM, copy part.1 to part.2, set
part.2 active and part.1 hidden. Now reboot and part.2 should boot and
rebuild the partition signatures in its registry.

At this point, you should have two completely independent installations,
one active and the other hidden. To toggle the active/hidden status,
run PM from CD or floppy and flip back and forth between each partition.
Alternately activate each partition and reboot into it to check that
each XP is working properly. Give each partition a different volume
label (such as "XP1" and "XP2") to help keep track of which is which.
Look in XP's Disk Management service and although it will "see" both
partitions, only one should have a drive letter. You should see
something similar to:
XPA (C:) NTFS Healthy (System)
XPB NTFS Healthy (Unknown Partition)
Depending on which partition you've activated, one or the other will be
C: and the other will be a "Unknown Partition". To confirm you're using
different registries, change the desktop wallpaper and confirm the
change does not carry over to the other installation. Look at each
partition's boot.ini file and they should be using different ARCpaths --
e.g., "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)" vs
"multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)".

If all is well, you can install BootMagic. (I don't use BM, but I
thought it wouldn't install on a NTFS partition. Since you didn't seem
to have trouble with it, I'll assume you don't need help with BM.)



.
Click to expand...
 
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