Scheduled disk checks no longer working

[Michael2k7]

I've currently installed OS selector on a new laptop thats been running for about 1.5 weeks.

Partition 1 is XP Pro 32 bit
Partition 2 is XP Pro 32 bit
Partition 3 is Vista 32 bit
Partition 4 is a data partition where the OS selector is installed.

I've ran into issues now twice in the last 1.5 weeks whereby scheduled disk checks of drive C in any operating system partition (1-3 in this case) will not work. I will schedule them, reboot, and they will not occur.

I've found that I need to run the OS selector installer again and select the repair/upgrade issue.

Any idea what is causing this? None of my partitions are corrupt and the disk checks don't report any issues.

[MudCrab]

Does doing a repair install of OSS allow a future scheduled drive check to take place or does it just allow the missed check to take place.

[Michael2k7]

It fixes both I believe.

There is something definately odd going on with the boot manager. I powered the laptop off and took it upstairs and powered it up and OS selector was toast (Laptop reported an issue with no bootable disk, hit a key to continue). Hit a key and it booted into my first partion (XP) without a problem. I ran a disk check on all my partitions and didn't run into any problems.

Looks like something is getting corrupted in OS selector, but so far haven't a clue what might be causing it. The scheduled checkdisks don't report any issues with the drives throughout any of this.

[MudCrab]

Is DD/OSS installed in any or all of your Windows installations or is OSS only installed from the CD?

Are you doing the repair installations/reactivations from the DD/OSS CD or from Windows?

[Michael2k7]

Everything is done from the CD. No DD is installed in any of the Windows installs.

[Michael2k7]

Interesting..it just happened again. After a repair from the CD, it fixed everything, but my default boot partition was changed (had it booting up a default after 3 sec).

[Michael2k7]

Well this happened again now, exactly the same problem. Here is some more/updated information and summary:

Partition Breakdown

1.) XP Pro 32 bit 1 (made the default bootable partition)
2.) XP Pro 32 bit 2
3.) Vista 32 bit
4.) Data partition (OS selector is installed here)

So once again, I was in partition 1 and scheduled a disk check on Drive C. Rebooted and the disk check never occurred.

Now the interesting part. I powered down my laptop and came back to it after, and I put the Acronis CD into the drive - it booted from the CD _FIRST_ and not off the hard disk, which is very odd. The BIOS is set to boot off of the hard disk first, then the CD-ROM. This happens when the problem manifests itself.

If I take the CD out and reboot, it boots off the hard disk.

I booted off the CD and did an OS selector repair, which repaired my problem, but it also went and changed my default boot partition from the first one to the 2nd one - not a big deal I can change this. But I hate having to drag the Acronis CDROM with me everywhere I go with my laptop because of this problem.

I have no idea why this is occuring and I'm totally lost. I use OS selector on my desktop and have never run into such weird issues. There is only one difference between these configurations:

On my problem configuration, I had to disable loading of CDROM drivers, because OS selector became very slow (only would respond to clicks every 10-15 seconds).

I am beginning to wonder if this is the reason why this problem is occuring.

Can anyone from Acronis respond to this ?

Otherwise I need to find a new boot manager for my laptop.

[Michael2k7]

Well another update with my DD 10/OS selector. A friend also uses DD/OS selector and found that after he defrags the disk with the OS selector files it leads to problems with the OS selector.

Googling the problem shows:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/archive/index.php/t-69861.html

So its confirmed that if you defrag the disk that has the Acronis OS selector files, it causes problems for some reason.

Apparently there is no fix available. So if you accidently run into this you will have to lug around your acronis CD to repair your OS selector files.

The best option which I may try is to create a 32MB partition only for the OS selector files with the stipulation that I never defrag it.

How the hell a defrag is killing the OS selector files is beyond me....perhaps OS selector does something very obscure with files....