[IMPLEMENTED] A way to hide non-bootable drives...

[quark]

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

In addition to that - selection by UUID would be very useful for Chameleon on Flash sticks if you use it for multiple computers. And "Show all partitions" option would be great too...

[Arial]

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?

+1 great idea.

[staticanime]

+2 that 

[Signal64]

Is using the partition UUID as a designator for show/no show options really necessary?

With a win7 install on a dedicated drive you end up with a "System Reserved" EFI partition before your os install one.  The EFI partition doesn't show a UUID using diskutil info on that drive.

Example:

Code: [Select]

diskutil info /dev/disk1s1
   Device Identifier:        disk1s1
   Device Node:              /dev/disk1s1
   Part Of Whole:            disk1
   Device / Media Name:      Untitled 1

   Volume Name:              System Reserved
   Mount Point:
   File System:              NTFS

   Partition Type:           Windows_NTFS
   Bootable:                 Not bootable
   Media Type:               Generic
   Protocol:                 SATA
   SMART Status:             Verified

   Total Size:               100.0 Mi (104857600 B) (204800 512-byte blocks)
   Free Space:               0.0 B (0 B) (0 512-byte blocks)

   Read Only:                No
   Ejectable:                No
   Whole:                    No
   Internal:                 Yes
Win7 OS Partition:

Code: [Select]

$ diskutil info /dev/disk1s2
   Device Identifier:        disk1s2
   Device Node:              /dev/disk1s2
   Part Of Whole:            disk1
   Device / Media Name:      Untitled 2

   Volume Name:
   Mount Point:
   File System:              NTFS

   Partition Type:           Windows_NTFS
   Bootable:                 Not bootable
   Media Type:               Generic
   Protocol:                 SATA
   SMART Status:             Verified
   Volume UUID:              0F1E9E16-AAD8-43A0-B076-11909AE01E3D

   Total Size:               387.9 Gi (416494387200 B) (813465600 512-byte blocks)
   Free Space:               0.0 B (0 B) (0 512-byte blocks)

   Read Only:                No
   Ejectable:                No
   Whole:                    No
   Internal:                 Yes
Probably some other scenarios out there as well.

I would suggest for consistency sake it be the same as how the Default Partition selection is done:

"Default Partition"       Sets the default boot partition,
    =hd(x,y)                  where 'x' is the disk number, 'y' the partition number.

[zef]

I would suggest for consistency sake it be the same as how the Default Partition selection is done:

"Default Partition"       Sets the default boot partition,
    =hd(x,y)                  where 'x' is the disk number, 'y' the partition number.

Yeah, implementing this feature by following the above scheme seems pretty easy.

[plamalice]

I see 2 simple ways this could be done.. Either use disk/partition number or use the partition label.

HFS, HFS+, FAT, FAT32, NTFS, EXT2 and EXT3 all have/support labels and Chameleon already reads these labels.

Of course, the drawback of this method is if you have more than 1 partition with the same label but i don't think this would really be an issue with bootable partitions (since we probably all name them according to the OS they hold).

A file (be it com.apple.boot.plist or whatever) could contain a list of labels to be hidden. Before showing an entry, Chameleon could compare the label of this entry to those from the list and ignore it if it is declared in said list.

I'm just not sure if Chameleon reads the label on EXT2/EXT3 filesystems (I don't have linux installed at the moment and back when i did, my FS didn't have a label set). Can anyone confirm this ?

Note: Most linux disk utilities will not bother to ask for a label to a partition -- To give a partition a label use 'e2label /dev/sd?? label' (ex: 'e2label /dev/sda1 Linux').

[zef]

We're going to use the "Hide Partition" option, where you can specify your unwanted BIOS drive+partitons like:

<key>Hide Partition</key>
<string>hd(0,2) hd(1,6) hd(0,7)</string>

This option will be available in the next version.

[tbob13]

We're going to use the "Hide Partition" option, where you can specify your unwanted BIOS drive+partitons like:

<key>Hide Partition</key>
<string>hd(0,2) hd(1,6) hd(0,7)</string>

This option will be available in the next version.

This would be great! I have 10 partitions and only 3 of them boot, and as you can imagine it is a bit messy when trying to find which OS to boot.

[Rodman55]

THIS WAS ADDED IN RC4

[Blackosx]

This topic is now locked as this request has been implemented.
Zef posted how to use this feature a couple of posts above.

You can also read how to use it in the Offical Chameleon docs.
http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,351.msg4311.html#msg4311