Sysprep

You can use Symantec Gdisk for this. It is available as a free download.
I found a link to it here, and i tried it on one of my system builds, and i'm able to hide the partition.
copy to a dos floppy, run using A:\gdisk.exe
you can type gdisk /? for a list of available commands.
http://www.cisnet.com/glennmcc/download/gdisk.zip
Please note that this is not my website, and i'm in no way affiliated with the above site...

you can hide the system build but it unhides when you run sysprep, when should i run Gdisk?

run gdisk, hide the partition and then run sysprep. This will not cause the system to unhide the partition.

Sorry i have tried that and it comes up as drive D: its FAT32

Its hidden before i run sysprep

Then i run sysprep, reseal it and it runs mini-setup

Then i have a frive D: with all my dos files!

Hmmmmmmm

so you have a C: drive with windows on it and a D: drive with a ghost file on it. you want to hide the D: partition so that users can't fiddle with it.
when you hide it with gdisk, it still comes up as D:
make sure that you are hiding the partition and that when you reboot, you can't access the partition in dos.

Yup

I have drive C: which is windows

Drive D: is ghost

I can hide drive D: with eaither Acronis or Gdisk which works eventually

Now i only have Drive c: EXCELLENT

BUT when i drun sysprep after the Minisetup

Drive D: is back!

HELP PLEASE

I will do this on a test computer here and let you know what solution i come up with :)

Thank you!

if you can sort this ill up the points!

sounds good :) just loading xp now.

Also, tell me how you run sysprep. do you do a sysprep -reseal? what commands do you pass, or what do you click on.

Yes sysprep -reseal

And i use the Mini - setup!

Ok i've got it working.
This is how you do it :D
install windows, configure it to whatever you want.
boot into a dos prompt (dos boot floppy)
run gdisk with the following command:

(assuming that you want to hide partition 2 on drive 1)
gdisk 1 /hide /p:2

when this completes, restart and boot into windows. You should see that the drive is not showing up in my computer (but does show up in disk management)
do a sysprep with a mini setup and then reseal. regenerate SID's also.
boot back into dos with your ghost floppy (2003) and create a ghost file like backup>partition>to image. then select your primary partition as the source, and your secondary (hidden) partition as your destination. This will have the desired effect and it will work like a charm.

You might have been making the mistake of running gdisk 1 /-hide instead of /hide. (-hide is unhide!)

Let me know how it goes, cause i have just done it and it works.

yes i have done all this my firend but after the mini setup when you reboot in my computer i have 2 drives again c: and D:

have you tried it in the order that i suggested?

when you do it is drive d: a extended partition?

Both C: and D: on mine are primarie partitions!!!

mine are primary partitions NTFS file system.
can you double check that you are using the gdisk command correctly, and that when you boot into windows that disk management shows the partition, with no drive letter and an unknown format, and that my computer doesn't show up the drive.

My drive D: is fat32!

is it XP that you are trying to ghost? if so, convert D: to NTFS. fat32 doesn't support partition hiding :D

can i boot dosfrom a ntfs partition?

why would you need to boot dos? you are ghosting windows XP into an image file right?

because on the fat32 i had dos installed with a script that ghosted my XP partition automatically when i boot to that partititon

EG

I boot the FAT32 partition

It boots dos
Then inistaited the ghost command

Then reboots

But i cant hide that damn partition!

and how do you select the D: drive as a bootable partition? is it through boot.ini?

no bootit NG

im sorry, that doesn't make any sense. can you tell me how you are selecting D: to boot from?

so i get no points for this? :(