Voodooprojects

Chameleon => General Discussion => Topic started by: gnapoleon on August 30, 2012, 07:54:26 PM

Title: Hiding Partitions & Partition names in Chameleon
Post by: gnapoleon on August 30, 2012, 07:54:26 PM
Two quick questions on this. I have noticed the HidePartition setting but:
1) How do you know which is which? Since on MacOS X my Windows drive comes up as disk0s0, I assume 0,0 is the first partition on the first hard drive with 1,0 the first partition on the second hard drive?
2) Can you rename partitions as they're displayed the boot loader (and not change the Disk Name itself)? Namely my Windows Boot partition seem to be called "System Reserved" or something similar.
Title: Re: Hiding Partitions & Partition names in Chameleon
Post by: Gringo Vermelho on August 31, 2012, 12:26:31 AM
disk0 is always the one you're booting from, ie the one Chameleon is installed to. Even if it's not connected to your first SATA port, or set as first boot drive in the BIOS.

You can't go by the order the drives are connected or the output from diskutil list because the order changes. I don't know if anyone has ever figured out why. You have to go by the order that's shown in the Chameleon GUI.

Just experiment until you hit the right numbers. Don't hide disk0 and you'll be fine - renaming/hiding partitions is purely cosmetic and does not alter anything on your drives in any way.

The System Reserved partition is an obvious candidate for renaming, and then you'd of course hide the partition where Windows itself is installed.
Title: Re: Hiding Partitions & Partition names in Chameleon
Post by: gnapoleon on August 31, 2012, 12:59:21 AM
Very useful, thank you. How do you rename the partition System Reserved partition though?
Title: Re: Hiding Partitions & Partition names in Chameleon
Post by: Gringo Vermelho on August 31, 2012, 01:36:17 AM
The same way you rename any other partition.

http://forum.voodooprojects.org/index.php/topic,351.msg10971.html#msg10971

For example

Code: [Select]
[Key]Rename Partition[/Key]
[String]hd(1,1) Windows[/String]
Title: Re: Hiding Partitions & Partition names in Chameleon (danielkza & Azimutz)
Post by: AuralArch on November 20, 2012, 01:17:00 PM
What if I have more than one Windows 7/8 or Windows Server 2008 R2/2012 installation, each of them having their own "System Reserved" partition??  Installing each on a separate HD with no other HDs connected is recommended as a "best practice".  It really helps to keep things clean & simple and avoid all sorts of potential confusion and wrestling with BCD as well as Windows activation- resulting in frustrating calls to Microsoft to resolve broken activation!
My goal is be able to make only one selection to boot any OS, preferably in Chameleon (or by calling BBS menu during POST- but I have a hard time with that because of my ADHD).

Three provisions are outlined by the Chameleon help documentation:  volume label, hd(x,y) or UUID

How do I identify WHICH "System Reserved" partition I'm renaming? 
Obviously can't use the volume label since they are all identical... (This works fine for hiding them all)

Using hd(x,y) is also troublesome (even ignoring the fact that the BIOS designation doesn't match that in OS X) because various simple changes in BIOS can change that order- such as disabling or enabling any PCI or PCIe device (onboard) or changing the mode of a PCI/PCIe device (from SATA to RAID or IDE- even if the HDs in question are not connected to that controller, it still changes the order the BIOS presents by HDs); not to mention if I need to switch a drive to another port or another controller...

So that leaves UUID...  Perfect, right?!

It would be perfect except for the fact that I can't get it to work because I have had quite a difficult time trying to find that information!


I have found a couple of sources for this UUID but they are not the only Chameleon is looking for- or can detect... First one was with a file called "fseventsd-uuid" which was placed in the directory ".fseventsd" at the root dir of "System Reserved" by Tuxera-NTFS.  However, this assigns a new UUID to the partition at each boot.  It seems to be a work around solution to OS X (diskutil) not assigning a UUID to this partition at all- at least not that I can find...
The second source I was able to uncover for the elusive "System Reserved" UUID was in the Windows registry.  This one does not get changed but it is assigned uniquely by each installation- which leaves me with as many possible UUIDs as I have Windows installations for each "System Reserved".  It also seems that this designation is only used internally, within the registry itself not even system-wide.  However, I can not be certain of that.
The BCD was another possible source I investigated but it seems that UUIDs are used internally & to identify disks (universally- so even chainloaded OSes don't get broken by switching HDs around between ports/controllers)- but not partitions/volumes...


Does anyone know how to find/reveal the UUID (that Chameleon uses) for the "System Reserved" partition/volume?

Or does anybody have a solution to allow accurate renaming/identification of MULTIPLE "System Reserved" partitions/volumes on the same system with Chameleon?



THANK you SO much!!!


I thought that at one point someone said (not necessarily on this forum) that the volume serial number would also work, but I haven't been able to get that to work (and I'm confident that my formatting is correct thanks to some fantastic, detailed explanations by Azimutz especially), nor have I managed to find that reference again to confirm my vague recollection.

Another possibility I explored was to look for the UUID on the drive itself at the beginning of the partition using software to view the raw data, but I don't know & couldn't find the precise location where that would be found.  And since I assume it wouldn't include the opening & closing brackets or the hyphens/dashes, I couldn't think of a way to search for it there.
Maybe someone with more knowledge or some expertise would be successful?   Assuming that's where Chameleon would also be looking...

If I remember correctly and I understood properly, I believe that danielkza wrote the patch which provides for this renaming feature...  Perhaps he would be able to shed more light & insight to this discussion?
I would also expect Azimutz to have some helpful knowledge & insight as he appears to be one of the most active developers & contributors to this forum.
Title: Re: Hiding Partitions & Partition names in Chameleon
Post by: Gringo Vermelho on November 20, 2012, 05:04:50 PM
I believe you can see the UUID in Disk Utility.
Title: Re: Hiding Partitions & Partition names in Chameleon
Post by: AuralArch on November 27, 2012, 12:58:17 PM
Indeed, but not for NTFS drives/volumes/partitions.  Just for Apple's native file systems...
Title: Re: Hiding Partitions & Partition names in Chameleon
Post by: AuralArch on February 01, 2013, 01:43:05 AM
Today I finally discovered the answer to this query that I've had for years now!  It's obviously not crucial, more of a cosmetic sort of annoyance than anything else...
But I'm posting this for anyone who may have a similar issue in the future and may stumble upon this as an answer.

Basically I have multiple Windows 7 installations each on its own drive and I had not yet figured out how to fully, successfully resolve two issues.  The first being in Chameleon: to rename those partitions with a something that distinguishes the "System Reserved" partitions from each other while keeping them properly correlated since I sometimes have to switch drives around between different controllers and ports.  And until now I had not figured out how to reveal the UUID for NTFS partitions- which is the key to that.
The other issue I was having is tied in with this same issue which is basically trying to keep the multiple "System Reserved" partitions from mounting at boot...  I tried many things, none of which worked properly or completely.  The key to this is also the UUID which I didn't know how to reveal which must be used in /etc/fstab along with the "noauto" tag.
Not too long ago I learned that it can be revealed in linux- Ubuntu more specifically. But I don't currently have that installed (except in VMs which doesn't help since it doesn't have direct, raw access to the disks) and for some reason my motherboard/BIOS has been a little finicky and I can't get it to boot up to the installation discs I've burned.
But FINALLY I discovered by accident that the UUID is printed by the diskutil command-line tool even for NTFS partitions when using the following command in the terminal app:

diskutil info diskXs1

It doesn't work with Tuxera NTFS however, you must first go into the preferences and disable Tuxera for that partition.  And either reboot, or try to mount and unmount it in the Disk Utility app.

I hope this info turns out to be useful to someone at some point!