Author Topic: [IMPLEMENTED] A way to hide non-bootable drives...  (Read 39152 times)

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chrisd

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #15 on: April 09, 2009, 08:51:15 PM »
Right on.  We're in agreement.  I'd love the "power user" solution also, but I'd settle for the .file if it makes the work for the developers easier.

amgupt01

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #16 on: April 12, 2009, 08:10:08 PM »
Yeah, I wouldn't mind just having an option in a plist to hide certain partitions because my NTFS data partition is showing up as a bootable partition.

Ahmad

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #17 on: April 13, 2009, 05:52:47 PM »
+1 for this option.

NoSmokingBandit

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #18 on: April 13, 2009, 08:39:22 PM »
Although it's not as glamorous as embedding UUIDs in a .plist file, how about using a file at the root of the drive to mark it as hidden from the boot menu.  Something like the .ntfs-readonly file that ntfs-3g uses to bypass read/write mounting on a drive (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080101043841537).   I would think this would be an easier solution to implement.

Just a thought....
This wouldnt work unless you can choose every drive within Chameleon anyway. If you put an invisibility file in the root of a linux partition then you can never get it out becuase you cant boot into that drive anymore and osx/windows dont really have any ext3 drivers that dont completely suck (last time i checked anyway). Perhaps wen chameleon boots it shows the drives you want and if you go into the little menu you can choose one of the 'invisible' drives anyway. That way everything is still available but you get an organized, clean screen to start with.
I wish i knew how to code stuff, i'd love to try and figure this out.

rzooff

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #19 on: April 14, 2009, 11:53:23 AM »
...and the next vote for this feature :)
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Infected24

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #20 on: April 25, 2009, 08:01:28 AM »
+1 for this feature. I hate see my ntfs data partition every time i want to choose a bootable OS.  :'(

zef

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #21 on: April 27, 2009, 03:13:48 PM »
Hi guys :)

Read the comments and ideas. Since we can read files only from HFS and FAT partitions at the moment, the hidden file method (eg .chameleon_hide) won't work on NTFS volumes. What we may do quickly and easy is to add a "Hide Partition" option with a list of partitions in format of "hd(x,y) hd(i,j)". It would be filesystem independent but it follows the current BIOS drive order.

How about that?
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zef

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #22 on: April 27, 2009, 03:46:46 PM »
Another idea.

How about to add a "Show Partitions" config option? It would have precedence over the "Hide Partitions" config.
Using this 2 options could give total control over the visible partition list (still lame because of the BIOS drive order).

Since the RC1 release we added some automation regarding not displaying HFS partitions without a system installed onto them. We're checking the existence of SystemVersion and ServerVersion.plist files under "System/Library/CoreServices" and won't display the volume if they're don't exist.
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BladeRunner

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #23 on: April 27, 2009, 04:34:04 PM »
Another idea.

How about to add a "Show Partitions" config option? It would have precedence over the "Hide Partitions" config.
Using this 2 options could give total control over the visible partition list (still lame because of the BIOS drive order).

Since the RC1 release we added some automation regarding not displaying HFS partitions without a system installed onto them. We're checking the existence of SystemVersion and ServerVersion.plist files under "System/Library/CoreServices" and won't display the volume if they're don't exist.

The concern I have with this method is that the hd(x,y) values can change when devices are plugged/unplugged.  If I plug in my Sandisk Cruzer USB drive in the front USB port, it becomes disk1 and the external USB drive which was disk1 shifts up by one disk number. I don't think this effects internal drives but I can't tell because I only have one internal drive.

Depending on the amount of work to identify bootable partitions, an option to hide non-bootable partitons might do what folks want.  Linux partitions that don't contain grub/lilo in the boot sector could be skipped and you already mentioned methods for identifying OSX systems. maybe the same can be done for WinX systems.
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zef

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #24 on: April 27, 2009, 05:34:08 PM »
Depending on the amount of work to identify bootable partitions, an option to hide non-bootable partitons might do what folks want.  Linux partitions that don't contain grub/lilo in the boot sector could be skipped and you already mentioned methods for identifying OSX systems. maybe the same can be done for WinX systems.

Sure these are all can be automated if we would have ext2/ext3/reiser/NTFS filesystem drivers within the booter.
So until we don't have the necessary fs drivers, i can offer this workaround, and it can be implemented easily.
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rzooff

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #25 on: April 27, 2009, 05:47:12 PM »
Since the RC1 release we added some automation regarding not displaying HFS partitions without a system installed onto them.
For me It's solve a problem.
But also +1 vote for HIDE or/and SHOW option in plist file.

Anyway thanks a lot for support :)
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Aranius

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #26 on: April 27, 2009, 08:30:31 PM »
I'm perfectly happy with the "hide"-Option, but please let it be a hd(x,y) and no UUID, since these magically seem to change everytime i boot OSX^^
For me this option is perfectly fine!


Workaround for those who have problems with this, might be to add a key-combination (like strg+h for example) which shows the hidden ones (no idea if that's possible but i thought it might)

BladeRunner

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #27 on: April 28, 2009, 03:04:38 AM »
Depending on the amount of work to identify bootable partitions, an option to hide non-bootable partitons might do what folks want.  Linux partitions that don't contain grub/lilo in the boot sector could be skipped and you already mentioned methods for identifying OSX systems. maybe the same can be done for WinX systems.

Sure these are all can be automated if we would have ext2/ext3/reiser/NTFS filesystem drivers within the booter.
So until we don't have the necessary fs drivers, i can offer this workaround, and it can be implemented easily.


I realize it is unreasonable to have drivers for all those filesystems.  I never meant to imply you should have them.

What I thought, maybe in error, was that reading the partition boot sector with something like the "dd" command would produce the content of that sector for inspection.  And, that grub/lilo would have detectable signatures that you could use to make the display or hide determination.

Also, I realize that even if what I suggested were possible, it might be too time consuming on large systems.  I don't know if the increased accuracy or consistency over the plist string hd(x,y) would be worth the effort.

Anyway,  I will appreciate anything you decide on.
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zhell

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #28 on: April 30, 2009, 09:55:00 PM »
Read the comments and ideas. Since we can read files only from HFS and FAT partitions at the moment, the hidden file method (eg .chameleon_hide) won't work on NTFS volumes. What we may do quickly and easy is to add a "Hide Partition" option with a list of partitions in format of "hd(x,y) hd(i,j)". It would be filesystem independent but it follows the current BIOS drive order.

How about that?

Hi zef,

This sounds very useful to me, especially bearing in mind that one should only start hiding partitions once everything works, hence BIOS order should no longer change...

A workaround independent of BIOS drive order could be an alternative syntax based of disk's MBR UUID or partition's GPT UUID, similar to "/etc/fstab" syntax, as follows:

MBR disks:
"hd(UUID=<MBR UUID>,y)", e.g. "hd(UUID=A93FE783,1)"

GPT disks:
"hd(UUID=<partition UUID>)", e.g. "hd(UUID=0A8D7328FD87E081"

Probably the syntax for MBR disks would be sufficient as all disks that can be booted by Chameleon necessarily have an MBR....
Cheers,
zhell

Dalton63841

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Re: A way to hide non-bootable drives...
« Reply #29 on: May 18, 2009, 02:50:42 PM »
I like the Preference Pane idea. In a real mac, Boot Camp has a prefpane for setting up the default OS. Something like this and hiding non-bootable drives would make Chameleon perfect for me.