Win XP (in dual boot) is seeing a hidden partition

Hi everybody!
I'm having some difficult in install a win xp in dual boot with win 7 (which came with the G550 notebook).
I modified the D: (Lenovo) partition to a primary partition to install the XP. Also I installed the EasyBCD to manage the boots and both S.O. load fine.
The problem is that Win XP is seeing a boot partition (the first partition on disk) with 200MB that is hidden for Win 7 ! So this partition takes the C: letter in XP and mess all the configuration once that many programs uses the C: as a default letter.
The disk is divided in (approx):
200 MB hidden partition (from factory)
160GB with Win 7 installed
40GB with Win XP installed
19GB hidden partition (Recovery - from factory)
Someone has any idea who to solve this problem or to do a XP installation from the beginning without problems?
Thanks a lot!

first of all, i'm not sure windows xp works on your system.
secondly, you need to install previous operation system before. you can not install xp on windows 7 or vista.
if you do that, you may need to change boot volume or make changes on volumes. but one key recover will stop working.
so, i suggest you not.

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Help - How to install Win XP in dual boot with Win 7 (first installed)?

Hi everybody!
I'm having some difficult in install a win xp in dual boot with win 7 (which came with the G550 notebook).
I modified the D: (Lenovo) partition to a primary partition to install the XP. Also I installed the EasyBCD to manange the boots and both S.O. load fine.
The problem is that Win XP is seeing a partition (the first partition on disk) with 200MB that is hidden for Win 7 ! So this partition takes the C: letter in XP and mess all the configuration once that many programs uses the C: as a default letter.
The disk is divided in (aprox):
200 MB hidden partition (from factory)
160GB with Win 7 installed
40GB with Win XP installed
19GB hidden partition (Recovery - from factory)
Is anyone has some idea who to solve this problem or make install XP from the beginning without problems?
Thank a lot!

jay4baps wrote:
Are you sure VMWare Fusion 6 is Launched??? give me link then i download it...
It's version 3.1

Win 7 (preloaded) and Win XP in dual boot. Who has it?

Hi there!
I've got a G550 with Win 7 (factory installed) and I need to install Win XP as second S.O.
I tried some things but it's not working properly....
The disk is divided in (approx):
200 MB hidden partition (from factory)
160GB with Win 7 installed
40GB with Lenovo drivers
19GB hidden partition (Recovery - from factory)
Who already did this or has this configuration working?
Need some tips, please...
Thanks,
Frank

first of all, i'm not sure windows xp works on your system.
secondly, you need to install previous operation system before. you can not install xp on windows 7 or vista.
if you do that, you may need to change boot volume or make changes on volumes. but one key recover will stop working.
so, i suggest you not.

Downgrade HP ENVY 15-u010dx to win 7, or duala boot win 7 and wind 8

i have brand new HP ENVY 15-u010dx with windows 8.1 installed.
Because of my needs (worrk related) i need win 7 installed.
Is it possible to install win 7 dual boot with win 8.1 ?
Does win 7 work on this machine, do you have drivers for win 7 x64
i'm asking this since i saw option in bios that has to be disabled to run win 7.
please help me..thanks in advance..

Hello @bigheadx,
I understand that your notebook computer takes a long time to reach the Windows log in screen after you power it on, and I would be happy to assist you in this matter!
To ensure there are no background programs or services that are slowing the booting process of your operating system, I recommend following the steps in this document on Windows 8 Safe Mode. I also suggest following this resource on Resolving slow system performance (Windows 8) to increase the speed and efficiency of your operating system.
Please re-post with the results of your troubleshooting, and I look forward to your reply!
Regards
MechPilot
I work on behalf of HP
Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the right to say “Thanks” for helping!

Win XP / 7 dual boot activation problem...

Here's the scene:
1/ Have Xp installed and CS4 running fine... (used to have CS3 as well but there was a mobo problem and CS3 now gives an activation error message. Too much of a hassle to reformat and reinstall... yada, yada, yada.)
2/ Just installed Win 7 to test as a dual boot option and installed CS4 fresh. PS and AI both give me a "Licensing for the product has expired" message with no options. There are no other activations, meaning no alternative on another system or laptop, etc.
Is there a work around or do i have to do a completely fresh install? Meaning, deactivate CS4 in th XP boot and then reinstall CS4 in th Win 7 boot?
TIA...
Kz
NB: FYI, have posted this in the Creative Suites (Win) forum as well...

Prhaps this will help
http://tehparadox.com/forum/f58/adobe-cs4-licensing-product-has-expired-fix-246488/

Dual HDD dual boot Win7/Win7 hibernate corrupts partitions? W510

I have two SSDs in my laptop using the ultrabay caddy. Both have 2 partitions each one with Windows 7 64bit and another one with OEM stuff on it (SYSTEM_DRV). I use the BIOS boot menu to boot between the drives. I have removed the drive letters so that no partitions of drive 1 are mapped in windows 2 on drive 2 and wise-versa.
What I have observered however is that when I hibernate windows 1, boot windows 2 do some work and shutdown then resume windows 1 - the windows 2 partition will get corrupt quite often (on either hdds). On several occassions I have seen the win 1/2 partition become RAW instead of NTFS (that is - it's completely borked) in Disk Manager or chkdsk running and wiping out all security descriptors on the file system resulting in a completely broken system (black screen of dead - unbootable).
Why am I seeing these corruptions and what can I do to prevent them?

Hi Benoitm,
Assuming the M4700 can boot from an external eSATA port, this should be possible. And it should be possible to install onto an HDD then put that drive in an external case and boot from it. Your preferences and drive letters should be retained. You might want to verify your system can boot to an external HDD first.
The Dell license only covers the version of the OS that came with the system. In theory, dual boot requires two licenses.

Win 32/64 dual boot

Guys,
I have win 32 installed on my raid-o VIA s-ata disks, runs not too bad
Now I want to install win 64 on my ATA Maxtor on IDE2, install runs fine, "F6-ing" the VIA drivers works too, after full installation the boot screen does NOT give any options and boots straight into win32
What am I overlooking

Hi Pim
Decide which disk you want to boot from, then boot from it, and go into Disk management ( my computer, right click, manage, disk management) both disks willbe there with partitions, note where the C: part is, then if you recognise which part the other OS is on, note drive No. and partitition.
From Desktop right click My comp, then properties,then Advanced, then the 3rd settings tab. at top there is the boot menu edit, click edit, brings up notepad with the boot file. Cut and paste another copy of the line with OS, then edit it with the drive No. and partition of second drive, change wording to suit. then File, then Save as.., will show as boot, Save , overwrite. Reset. Change boot seq if necessary to boot from the right disk. That should bring up both OSs, try.
Cheers
jocko

Solved Acer v3 571G laptop dual boot windows 8.1 help partitioning

I have made a usb installation drive and have got as far as the root prompt on installation after having the uefi issue with loader and using the hashtool successfully on the wiki page. However I did not go any further because I had not the partitioning done. And I am stuck. My system has a 500gb disk running windows 8.1. The partition is like the following
/dev/sda1 ntfs Recovery 400mb
/dev/sda2 fat32 ESP 300mb
/dev/sda3 unknown microsoft reserved partition 128mb
/dev/sda4 ntfs Acer 222.82 47 used
/dev/sda5 ntfs -------- 450mb hidden diag
/dev/sda6 ntfs Data 222.16mb mfsdata
unallocated 1.00mb
/dev/sda7 ntfs Push Button Reset 19.53gb hidden diag
I can boot gparted from a cdrom. Where would I install archlinux and how do I format the partition. I suppose I will be using uefi and formatting a partition accordinlgy.
Last edited by leonax (2014-11-15 17:10:58)

I resubmitted this question in the Installation thread and got an answer there.

Can I share files between dual-boot Snow Leopard and Leopard partitions?

Apparently one of the cool new features of Snow Leopard is its file system compression. That has me wondering though, if I want to have a single drive with two partitions and install Snow Leopard on one partition and Leopard one the other will I be able to mount the SL partition from Leopard and read/edit files without causing problems?
It seems like that would not be possible but I thought I'd throw it out here to see if anyone has tried.

As far as I can tell, Apple has applied compression to most of the system executable files in Snow Leopard. However they do not appear to apply it to data files for any applications that I have looked at.
Apples documentation for ditto (go to terminal and type "man ditto" at the prompt, without the quotes) states:
--hfsCompression
When copying files or extracting content from an archive, if the destination is an HFS+
volume that supports compression, all the content will be compressed if appropriate. >This
is only supported on Mac OS X 10.6 or later, and is only intended to be used in >installa-tion installation
tion and backup scenarios that involve system files. Since files using HFS+ compression
are not readable on versions of Mac OS X earlier than 10.6, this flag should not be >used
when dealing with non-system files or other user-generated content.

Need some help about Win 8.1 and linux with a dual boot

Hi!
I have a Lenovo z50-70 notebook and I have a Windows 8.1 on it. (The one which was shipped with this notebook...)
My concerns are Intalling Linux as a dual boot and loosing Windows 8.1.
As I am not familiar to Win 8.1, the product key is in the ?BIOS? and there's a lot of partitions...
If I install Linux Ubuntu (latest version) as a dual boot by manually making the partitions, etc. and then if I lose my Windows 8.1 system, how can I get it back?
I've made a backup of the system to the portable hdd but I don't know can I restore it, as I have no win installation disc and I am not sure if i can restore win 8.1 from the backup by using random win 8 installation disc that I've made from the downloaded ISO (for e.g. Win 8.1 pro iso from internet)...
I need a Linux distro for developing my Android ROM but I don't want to lose that Win 8.1 OS from my notebook. So.. What should I do?

Did you do a full disc backup of the C: Drive using a backup tool other than windows? If you did, then the recover of that partition will be up to your backup software.
If worse comes to worse, you can use the novo button to restore your computer to what it was like when it came from the factory. But there really is nothing to worry about. Create your new partition and just make sure that you install Linux to that partition. Make sure it is not the same size as any other partition, that way even if the Linux installer does not show the volume labels, you can tell which partition you want to install Linux in just by the size.
Hoov
Microsoft MVP - Consumer Security
SpywareHammer.com

Cannot get to dual-boot screen after Win 8.1 upgrade

Hello,
I have an iMac with Mavericks. Recently installed Win 8 to dual-boot. Instrux then were to hold OPT button during startup to be presented with options for OS with which to boot.
Since Win 8.1 upgrade there is no way to get to that prompt. MS/Win help topics not useful (unsurprisingly). I have the original install disk but would far prefer to save my current config of Mav. Thoughts for workaround?
Cheers,
Michael C

holding down option key at bootup not giving you the bootmenu have nothing to do with win8.1
even if one never installed anything in terms bootcamp at all then holding down the option key should give the option between osx and the restore to last clean osx version
if you don't get the option then I'd say the cause is not windows as the menu is handled by the bootloader which is before windows takes over

Dual Boot,XP Pro Ok but Win 98SE cannot boot

I have a dual boot system, with 2 primary partitions, and bootmagic installed. My boot disk is on raid 0 on the raptor drives.
Installed Win 98SE first, than created second primary partition, installed win xp pro. Installed bootmagic on 1st primary partition, so can dual boot.
XP installed and running without any problem. XP runs fine with either ACPI enabled or disabled.
For Win 98 SE, with ACPI disabled, with USB enabled, system hangs while booting up. If I disable USB, I can boot to win 98 SE. During initial install, the first drivers for my board was the Intel INF. I suspected the board and brought the board to local tech support. They showed me that they could install win 98 SE without any problem. Board, cpu, hsf and rams were the mine. They used a single hard disk and a single CD Rom. Therefore, cannot RMA board.
I am suspecting that because I am using the Promise and Intel Raid, more irqs had to be shared and XP Pro could handle that but Windows 98 SE cannot handle that. I only have three add on boards, the Storm 2 DV editing card, ATI AGP graphics card and a V.92 modem card. Nothing else. I tried to do some fiddling in the bios for the IRQs but does not help. The only way to boot into Win 98 SE was to disable USB.
Could someone give me some pointers on what I could try out further?
Thank you.

I had rewritten the information regarding my problem and added in more detail and sent it out to MSI. Hopefully, they will respond (quite unlikely) . Here's it:
I have a dual boot system, with 2 primary partitions, and bootmagic installed. My boot disk is on raid 0 on the raptor drives.
Installed Win 98 SE first, than created second primary partition, installed win xp pro. Installed bootmagic on 1st primary partition, so can dual boot.
XP installed and running without any problem. XP runs fine with either APIC enabled or disabled.
For Win 98 SE, with APIC disabled, with USB enabled, system hangs while booting up. If I disable USB, I can boot to win 98 SE but my Intel Gigabit Ethernet will have an exclamation mark. Getting newer drivers and Intel INF did not help. During initial install, the first drivers for my board was the Intel INF. I suspected the board and brought the board to local tech support. They showed me that they could install win 98 SE without any problem. Board, cpu, hsf and rams were the mine. They used a single hard disk and a single CD Rom. Therefore, cannot RMA board.
I decided to disable the Intel Gigabit Ethernet in Win 98 SE. After that, I looked into the properties and realized that some memory allocated for the Intel Gigabit Ethernet are being used by other system resources. If I disable Serial Comm Port 2 and enable USB in bios, I can boot into windows and drivers detection for USB will proceed until it gets to “ Intel ® 82801EB USB Universal Host Controller – 24D7 “ and hangs my system. I cannot check if the problem is caused by IRQs or Memory allocation.
I am suspecting that because I am using the Promise and Intel Raid, more irqs had to be shared, memory allocations were more demanding and XP Pro could handle that but Windows 98 SE cannot handle that. When I try to do some tweaking in Windows 98 SE properties for the Intel Gigabit Ethernet, I was prompted that I cannot make changes. I guess the board, at bios level, fixed all the irq and memory allocations and so Windows 98 SE cannot make any changes.
Anyone can advise what I can do within the bios so that I can do further tweaking on memory resources allocation? I know that I can do something on IRQ and DMA but seems nothing can be done for memory allocation.
Hope one of you have some helpful information.

How do you do dual boot without Dual activation for CS3?

I know this has been discussed but I can't find the post called Daryl Pritchard, "Activating CS3 with both Vista and XP Pro on same system" #3, 21 May 2007 12:49 am . That link seems to be dead.
I'm slow to make the switch, but I'm planning to install Vista on the same box I've had XP Pro on. I have a LOT of software on this box (it normally takes 34 hours to install everything from scratch) including VIsual Studio (2003, 2005, 2008), Lotus Notes designer (R6.5, R8), 3D Studio Max, etc. etc. etc. I'm not ready to flip the switch and just run the Vista upgrade. I want to dual boot with XP on one partition and Vista on the other, so that I can boot to XP if something doesn't seem to be running correctly under Vista.
Here is my dilemna. I also have Photoshop CS3 installed on my laptop, and I need it there because I travel every few weeks and still have to manipulate images. I'd like to avoid deactivating licenses everytime I get on a plane or drive across town. I don't want to have to use up both of my "activations" when I'm staying within the intent of the Eula - it's only going to be used on one machine.
How has everyone else faced this challenge? I know there are plenty of people with dual boot set ups.
I'll deactivate Photoshop on XP Pro if I have to, but that's going to be a headache if I have to turn on the laptop everytime I work in XP on the desktop and need to modify a PSD image.

I believe you can only deactivate/activate 20 times, precisely to keep
people from swapping the two licenses amongst more than 2 computers, so
deactivating on your travel-computer will only work for the next few times
you do it.
Depending on what things you do to your images, you might be able to get by
with using Elements to work with the PSDs. The newer versions of Elements
lets you work with Layers so it may be ok. Install the PSE trial and see
how well it works.
If you must have Photoshop, and one copy needs to be on your laptop, then
you must choose dual-boot you want to use it on, and perhaps install the
trial on the other bootable partition and if it works fine for everything,
and at the end of 30-days, choose which one to keep activated, or decide
that you can upgrade your XP. I think you should attempt to upgrade it,
anyway, just to see if it's even possible. I think you can uninstall the
upgrade if you do it right away, and get back to your XP...I had to do that
when my graphics card refused to work, even though the Vista Upgrade Advisor
didn't complain. Installing Vista from scratch seemed to work. I just
bought a new HD and reinstalled everything.
Another thing to consider is that Windows 7 will be available for retail
purchase before Halloween and people like it better than Vista as far as
running things faster, so maybe just skip Vista. The only glitch I had was
having to uninstall Nero's packet-writing (CDRW as a floppy) software after
I upgraded to Vista and it didn't quite work and I had to use a Nero-clean
utility to get rid of it. It isn't compatible with Win7 and I could have
gotten around the problem by merely uninstalling Nero before upgrading and
putting it back, afterwards. I have an older version of Nero was my actual
problem.
I am running the Win 7 Ultimate RTM from my MSDN subscription and like it a
lot...more transparency and they finally combined the quick-links with the
actual task-bar so you can just pin things down there and they are
highlighted if they're running or not highlighted if not--sort of like a Mac
has been doing for a while, but with much smaller icons if you want.

Dual boot

A colleague has just purchased a new Lenovo (might be an L540 - not certain) and says she has it installed with Windows 7 "with the option of changing to 8".
She has seen me running a dual boot of Win 7 and 8 on an older laptop, and wonders whether her machine as delivered from Lenovo can be set up this way. I have no idea of the licensing arrangements of a new machine, or what disks, if any, that it came with, but am I correct to assume that it is not possible?
Her idea was either to leave bpoth OS's installed and have one set up for home use and one set to match her business network or, alternatively, just to try both OS's for a time to see whether she gets on with Win8.

I'm not really sure about the licensing arrangement, but with my Z570 it was fairly easy to set up a dual boot since my system came with the $15 Windows 8 upgrade offer. That offer included a download of Windows 8 along with the Key for registration.
In order to install your friend will have to do some partition resizing to make room for Windows 8. Since all the primary partitions are currently being used, at least on my Z570, she will have to create a larger extended partitions in which to create another logical partition for the Windows 8 install. The only negative result of the resizing is that the option for the One Key Recovery will no longer work on boot up. If that is an important feature to her she might reconsider install Windows 8 on her hard drive.
Owner & Operator of the following:
● Lenovo Ideapad Z570 w/ Win 7 & Win 8.1 Dual Boot ● Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro w/ Windows 8.1 ● Toshiba A75-S206 w/ Win 7
● IBM Thinkpad T-23 w/ Win XP ● IBM Thinkpad T-22 w/ Win XP • As well as multiple desktops dual/triple booting XP, Vista and Win 7.
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Inquiry about dual booting Arch, without messing around in cfdisk

A little background:
I was given a computer that I could install arch on, but I needed to dual boot it. After not daring to mess around in cfdisk, I was pondering other distros that would take the hassle of dual booting out of the equation. Then I was told I could install Arch over windows, which I did.
My question:
How feasible would it be for me to install ubuntu alongside my arch installation then install Windows over the ubuntu install, so that I could run steam? Will it ruin any of my Arch data? Hope that makes sense.
Would that be an easier way of dual booting than deleting/making new partitions in cfdisk?
I didn't see any other questions like this when I tried searching.
Thanks
Last edited by SaladHunter (2012-04-11 17:32:03)

I think installing Linux on same partition as Windows or on a FAT32/NTFS partition (Windows-accessible) is a bad idea. If you get a virus then the Linux files also get infected. I recommend you install it on a separate EXT4 partition. Don't worry, you can still access it from Windows using something like Ext2fsd but at least you can mount them as Read-Only.
Awebb wrote:I'd say get a second hard disk for Windows. I know, this type of recommendation isn't very welcome in most situations, as we always try to do what we want with what whe have, but I kept running into trouble with dual boots on one disk, so if...
Um, I have Windows XP installed on the second partition of the second disk. And Windows *XP*, mind you, which needed map (hd0) (hd1), map (hd1) (hd0) in GRUB Legacy to make it think it was on the first drive.
# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
224 heads, 19 sectors/track, 459004 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x337b9070
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2048 104869887 52433920 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT --> 50 GB Games
/dev/sda2 104869888 1953523711 924326912 83 Linux --> 880 GB Backup
Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xabf50919
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 20964824 10482381 83 Linux --> 10 GB Arch
/dev/sdb2 20965376 62910463 20972544 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT --> 20 GB Windows XP with enough room for Windows 7 (if I ever need to)
/dev/sdb3 62910540 976751999 456920730 83 Linux --> 435 GB Storage
Because I can, and because someone once told me that it can't be done.
This is the relevant bit from my /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg, installed on the second drive (meaning /dev/sdb1, see the fdisk boot flag):
LABEL xp
MENU LABEL Windows XP
KERNEL chain.c32
APPEND hd0 2
ZekeSulastin wrote:The big problem you're going to have is that Windows doesn't easily play nice with a prepartitioned drive - the installer will usually want to make its own partitions, including its own "boot" partition in Win 7.
Nah. If you choose an already created partition during the initial setup it won't create the so called "System Reserved" 100 MB partition. You'll see some extra hidden folders on drive C:\ though.
Last edited by DSpider (2012-04-12 11:41:10)

Win XP (in dual boot) is seeing a hidden partition

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