XP on two drives - hide unbooted partition

[Netsmurf]

Hi @ all!

I have XP installed to a 500 GB SATA Drive, 250 GB primary Partition. The remaining 250 GB will be used later for a "SteadyState" shadow partition. Made a backup, using "Paragon Backup and Recovery 2011", restored this to a second hard drive (500 GB SATA). Each drive connected solely boots up fine. So my clone works.

Now I want to have both drives connected simultaneously, booting with a bootmanager that lets me select the boot-drive and then hides the unbooted drive, so windows does not "see" the other installation and is always drive "c".

Is that possible with Plop? How do I configure that? I guess it is (almost) the same thing as one drive with several partitions, but I did not make it fly yet...

THANX for your help!

Bye

Netsmurf

P.S.: will I have to edit "boot.ini"? Is it just as easy as changing "...rdisk(0)..." to "...rdisk(1)..." on the drive attached to the secondary SATA port?

[Elmar]

Is that possible with Plop?

yes

when something is different to my description, then stop and tell me what you see. i wrote it from my mind without testing, so maybe i forgot something

i hope you made a backup of your data. its always possible that something goes wrong.

download the latest boot manager version. currently its 5.0.12

i think you have to change rdsk(0) to rdisk(1) in you boot.ini of the second hard disk. i suggest to create an entry with rdisk(0) and one with rdisk(1). when all works fine, then you can remove the wrong entry.

Description:
connect both hard disks
boot with the plop boot manager install cdrom (install\plpbtin.iso)
install the boot manager
after a reboot you should see "os harddisk 1" and "os harddisk 2"
got to setup / profiles / os harddisk 1
you can give it a new label if you want
go to linked partitions
at the first line press enter and choose hda1
move the bar to the first line of hdb and press "c"
esc esc and save
go to os harddisk 2
linked partitions
at the first line press "c"
move the bar to the first line of hdb and press enter
choose hdb1
esc esc save
go to the main menu and booting should work as you requested.


Info:
when you booted the first profile and then you remove the second hard disk, then the removed hard disk is unable to boot, because the partition is "cleared". before you remove a hard disk, you should boot the os that the partition is visible.

regards
elmar

[Netsmurf]

Hi Elmar,

thanks a lot for your quick response! Fortunately you're not out, chasing the easter bunny 

Yes I have this Paragon-Backup, which I already restored several times after faulty attempts...

I will now go ahead following your instructions (booting from floppy instead CD should not make any difference?) and report back, soon. I would feel more comfortable with "hidden" partitions instead of "cleared". Would that work out, too?

Bye,

Netsmurf

[Elmar]

Fortunately you're not out, chasing the easter bunny 

i tried to catch the easter bunny, but he was too fast.

I will now go ahead following your instructions (booting from floppy instead CD should not make any difference?) and report back, soon. I would feel more comfortable with "hidden" partitions instead of "cleared". Would that work out, too?

install from floppy makes no difference.

for hidden partitions, you have to create the hidden version of your partitions

Description:
go to setup / partitions
choose an empty entry
give it a label like "xp1 hidden"
select device: hda
edit mbr/import data:
  cursor down to "P1"
  press "s" key
  cursor up to "BP"
  press "p"
  esc
go to partition id
enter partition id
when you see 07 then change the value to 17, else tell me the number
esc and save

second xp:
choose an empty entry
give it a label like "xp2 hidden"
select device: hdb
edit mbr/import data:
  cursor down to "P1"
  press "s" key
  cursor up to "BP"
  press "p"
  esc
go to partition id
enter partition id
when you see 07 then change the value to 17
esc and save

now in profiles, you have to choose in the profile for the xp on hard disk 1 the partition "xp2 hidden" instead of pressing "c" for cleared on hdb
and "xp1 hidden" for the profile for xp on the second hard disk instead of "c" on hda


regards
elmar

[Netsmurf]

O.K. I followed your instructions regarding the hidden partitions so far:

Description:
go to setup / partitions
choose an empty entry
give it a label like "xp1 hidden"
select device: hda
edit mbr/import data:
  cursor down to "P1"
  press "s" key
  cursor up to "BP"
  press "p"
  esc
go to partition id
enter partition id
when you see 07 then change the value to 17, else tell me the number
esc and save

second xp:
choose an empty entry
give it a label like "xp2 hidden"
select device: hdb
edit mbr/import data:
  cursor down to "P1"
  press "s" key
  cursor up to "BP"
  press "p"
  esc
go to partition id
enter partition id
when you see 07 then change the value to 17
esc and save

Calling the XP partition on HDA "TSCM" and the XP partition on HDB "LUST".

But I am a little bit confused with the configuration of the profiles:

now in profiles, you have to choose in the profile for the xp on hard disk 1 the partition "xp2 hidden" instead of pressing "c" for cleared on hdb
and "xp1 hidden" for the profile for xp on the second hard disk instead of "c" on hda

Could you please give me a noob-compatible step-by-step instruction (like the one for the partitions) for the profiles?

Thank you!

Bye,

Netsmurf

P.S.: Next time you'll be in Munich, I owe you a beer, or two 

[Elmar]

whats the names of the hidden partition entries?

[Netsmurf]

I kept the existing Partitions "hda1" and "hda2" without any changes. Underneath each, I created an new partition, following your instruction. "TSCM hidden" under "hda1" and "LUST hidden" under "hda2".

Do you need more screenshots?

Thanks & bye,

Netsmurf

[Elmar]

Description:
got to setup / profiles / os harddisk 1
go to linked partitions
at the first line press enter and choose hda1
move the bar to the first line of hdb, press enter and choose "LUST hidden"
esc esc and save
go to os harddisk 2
linked partitions
at the first line press enter and choose "TSCM hidden"
move the bar to the first line of hdb and press enter and choose hdb1
esc esc save

thats all


regards
elmar

[Netsmurf]

P E R F E C T ! ! !

It works exactly the way you described!

Thank you very much!

Did not even have to modify "boot.ini" on the second drive.

Just one (hopefully last) question: How do I get rid of the "Network" entry in the Boot-selection?

Bye,

Netsmurf

[Elmar]

Just one (hopefully last) question: How do I get rid of the "Network" entry in the Boot-selection?

the network option is auto detected. you have to disable the network boot rom in your bios.

best regards
elmar

[Netsmurf]

Hm, I thought I did that already, but you will probably be right. I'll check...

Thanks again!

Bye,

Netsmurf