OSS Cluster Bomb. No OS found, can't uninstall it

[TheWeaz]

I only have one OS installed, Win XP Pro, but was thinking about installing another.
Installed and activated OSS but it found no operating systems and locked me out.
I restored the MBR and was able to boot again, but now I can’t uninstall the damn OSS. Because it can’t find any operating systems, the uninstall cannot continue.
SO … any reason why it can’t find my OS and how do I uninstall the thing? I even tried from my BartPE disk, but did not find a way to get rid of it.

[MudCrab]

OSS has a problem detecting some Windows installations, especially of they're OEM. While it seems to happen more with Vista, it does happen with XP too.

You can only force an uninstall of OSS by doing it from the DD/OSS CD. This means you need to create a CD that includes the OSS programs.

If you want me to take a look at the BOOTWIZ.OSS file, attach it to a post (instructions can be found here) along with a screenshot of what DD shows (in Manual Mode) for your partitions.

If you do this, note that OSS must be installed (like it is now). It's okay if it's been deactivated by restoring the MBR, but if you uninstall OSS and then send the file, the file won't be valid when you reinstall OSS.

[TheWeaz]

bootwiz.txt



Here ya go ... and Thanks in advance.

[MudCrab]

Try this file. I assume you're using build 2,160 or later of OSS.

[TheWeaz]

Thank you again.
Yes, ver 2.160
There is now a Win XP listed in the "Operating Systems" window.
My time today has run out so I will not be able to test this until tomorrow. I assume that if I run into trouble the MBR restore will fix it again?

[MudCrab]

You can restore the MBR to return normal booting. It's basically the same as deactivating OSS. The only other thing that may need checked is that the correct partition is set Active (usually the Windows partition -- the one you want to boot).

[TheWeaz]

Luckily I had a boot CD with TI on it and a Full partition image from which to restore the MBR.
I wonder how many people have gotten bit in the shorts and locked out of their system with this type of problem.

[MudCrab]

Originally Posted by TheWeaz

Luckily I had a boot CD with TI on it and a Full partition image from which to restore the MBR.
I wonder how many people have gotten bit in the shorts and locked out of their system with this type of problem.

Quite a few, actually. I think it was a bad decision on the part of Acronis to not allow OSS to be deactivated or uninstalled if it can't "find" an OS. It should just put the drive back how it found it.

I get the impression that most users of OSS don't have the OSS programs on their DD CD. This means that they can't use the "force" method without creating one, which can be hard if the computer won't boot.

[TheWeaz]

How does one get OSS on the CD?
I had created a BartPE with the TI and DD plug-ins, but that apparently isn’t enough. Does OSS require a plug-in or can files just be copied to an existing BartPE?
TIA

[MudCrab]

You can't put the OSS "CD" programs in a BartPE build. They have to be included on a standard CD created using the Media Builder program.