Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
I know the following information will probably interest to 0.001% of readers, but it costed me blood (many testing hours) to figure out the issue, so I will post it here for the benefit of those few interested and for people reaching here thru google in the future
If you already know RPM then skip the following paragraph.
Ranish Partition Manager (RPM) v2.44 is an old disk manager application that runs under DOS and serves the usual purpose of partitioning a disk and establishing a boot manager (this is, a simple menu deployed at boot-time to select which OS we are gonna load-up this time). While there are friendlier tools you can do all this with, RPM has unique advantages:
1. You can select exactly, with sector presicion, the location and sizes of each partition you create
2. It has its own boot manager which runs independently from any operating system (in fact, it runs the menu even if you have NO OS at all)
3. The killer edge: It uses an internal trick so you can have up to 30 primary partitions instead of just 4. That's probably more than anyone will ever need, but at the same time many will find that the usual limit of 3 bootable partitions (assuming 1 extended one is present) falls short.
WARNING: RPM is unfriendly and takes a while to master. It's not a good choice unless you absolutely want to boot more than 3 OSes in the same drive.
The problem:
It so happens that Windows 7 doesn't easily accept strange programs governing the MBR; it attempts by all means to take care of the MBR itself, placing its insidious "MS boot manager" and trying to be the king of the disk... and therefore downgrading it back to the standard limitation of 3 OSes. Otherwise, it gives a BSOD at startup, which you need to repair, in which case Win 7 does at the expense of taking back control of the MBR, thus ruining the original RPM setup.
The solution:
It consists of three steps:
step 1. Getting rid of the phantom "boot" partition that comes standard with Windows 7
step 2. Generalizing Windows 7 BCD
step 3. Setting up RPM
STEP 1:
1. In Windows 7, open a CMD window with Administrative privileges and type:
DISKPART
SELECT DISK 0
SELECT PARTITION 1 (*assumes 1 is your elusive boot partition, no drive letter assigned)
INACTIVE
SELECT PARTITION 2 (*assumes 2 is your system partition, aka C: )
ACTIVE
SELECT PARTITION 1
DELETE PARTITION OVERRIDE
EXIT
bcdboot c:\windows /s c:
2. Reboot and ensure Windows 7 loads up correctly. If so you're done with step 1. If it doesn't come back alive you're in trouble: insert Windows 7 installation CD and attempt a repair: painful process but better than reinstalling the whole $h*t
STEP 2:
1. Again, open a CMD window with Administrative privileges and type ( source):
bcdedit /set {current} osdevice boot
bcdedit /set {current} device boot
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot
2. Reboot and ensure Windows 7 loads up correctly. If so, you're done for now; if not, refer to STEP1:2.
NOTE: After completing this step, you'll be able to capture an image of your Windows 7 partition and place it anywhere else on your disk (notice I'm not saying porting it to a different computer). So even if you never use RPM, you can save this image, mess around with your hard drive with any tool you feel comfortable with, and then restore your image in a new partition and it will boot just fine. You can use this trick to repartition your hard drive and then get your Windows 7 back just as it was.
STEP 3:
Now you're ready to set up RPM.
1. Save the Windows 7 partition to an image in an external disk (using Ghost-like software)
2. Set up RPM (very quick instructions as this is not an RPM tutorial): create as many partitions as you wish with all due considerations. One of these partitions should be big enough to fit your Windows 7 image; you must create a partition of the type "Boot Manager" (this is mandatory), and the MBR boot interface type should be "Text 25x80". Save your newly configured MBR with F2 and make a paper backup of the MBR design, this is: write down each partition's type and boundaries (begining/end cylinders).
3. Retrive (restore) the Win 7 image you backed up in (1) into its new partition.
4. Reboot the machine: you should now see a handful of partitions as booting options. If you followed my steps religiously, then only Windows 7 is an actual option at this point (the other partitions will obviously lead to a "no operative system found" sign).
However, you're now free to install whatever OS you like in the other available partitions. Keep at hand the paper backup of your partition architecture, as each OS you install will try to conquer the MBR, therefore destroying your RPM design. You must be ready to recreate your design as many times as OSes you install. With the paper backup at hand, you can't miss.
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IMPORTANT for Ubuntu / Linux installers:
If you're planning to set up a multi-OS environment, then Linux is an interesting candidate to consider. Like any other OS, if you're not careful, Linux will try to gain control of your MBR, destroying whatever you had set-up previously there. Fortunately, at least when installing the Ubuntu distro (don't know about others), you can avoid this. Just follow these steps:
1. Create all your partitions with RPM as the very first task, ideally before any OS (you already read instructions on how to take away your Windows 7 and bring it back later after setting up a new partition architecture for your disk). Among your partitions, have one primary partition reserved for your Ubuntu/Linux installation and an extended partition reserved for Swapping.
2. Set a row (number) for your Linux partition and make it active (bootable); RPM allows for many primary partitions but since this is opposite to the standard MBR rules, only 2 primaries can be visible at any given time (actually, 4 can be visible, but one's already taken by RPM itself to be able to function, and a second one's used by your extended partition; this leaves only 2 "bootable" primaries to be seen simultaneously).
3. When installing Ubuntu (from a CD or pendrive) choose advanced options, where you can choose which partition to install (you'll recognize it immediately, as Ubuntu shows you a map of your drive at this point). If you followed, then there's only 2 partitions to choose among: sda1 and sda2 (sda3+ on... should be logical volumes inside your extended partition). Let's assume you choose "sda1"...
4. There's another choice to be made here and this is where to place the boot records. This is the crucial part: you must choose sda1 too as the place to set the boot records on. By default, Ubuntu will try to set them in sda (no number) which is... you guessed it! the MBR. By diverting this to sda1, Ubuntu won't mess with the MBR and so RPM will have everything under control and your multi-boot system will function perfectly.
Multiboot/Multi-OS systems: Windows 7 with RPM (Ranish Partition Manager)
Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by m.susc, Mar 9, 2012.
