Disk Director created partitions corrupt under Vista

I've been using Acronis products for ages, and my current machine setup was made using DD9, then DD10. I tried to install Vista into dual boot, and when that failed single boot. Each time I tried the install process would fail. Each time it would fail after the first reboot when installing.

I talked to lots of people about this on other forums, and we finally found the culprit, Disk Director...

I used a spare drive, made all the partitions I wanted to use using Windows Vista DVD, and it installed fine. I did the same thing on a spare drive using DD and it would always fail to install.

All partition that I mad using DD were primary NTFS, the one where I wanted the OS to be was made active.

As a horrifying addition, if you have a Primary Active NTFS partition with XP loaded. When you install Vista (upgrade or not) Vista will try to write to the XP partition. When upgrading it obviously trys to write the new OS. When performing an advanced install to a different partition, Vista will write its bootmanager into the XP partition.

The problem is that Vista does not like the NTFS formatted partitions made by DD. When it trys to write these files it totally corrupts the partition

Some supporting details can be found here (scroll down to the changes made by Visa to an existing OS):
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/

The solution is simple
1) Backup your work, no really, BACKUP ALL YOUR WORK
2) Move and shuffle your partitions around to how you want them using DD10.
3) Make sure any existing OS partitions are not primary active, select the partition you want to install Vista to as primary active
4) Boot using Vista DVD.
5) Now when you get choose where to install Vista DELETE AND FORMAT the partition you want Vista on using Vista itself.

This allows you the convenience of using DD10 to setup your disk, and ensures Vista sets up the only partition its going to write to.

This is the only method of install that has not resulted in totally corrupted partitions for ME (your experience may vary). Acronis DD was not able to recover any of my data, but then as a user of TI10 all it cost me was a lot of frustration working out this problem and recovery time.

 

Same problem is reported here, and the same fix sorted it (although the fix was not as well documented as it is here)

http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Windows/Windows_Vista/Q_22462719.html

 

Hello Luminous,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Partition and Disk Managing Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

Thank you for the provided information. Sharing your experience is very much appreciated.

Could you please have a look at this post and collect the requested there information and reports, if you have time for this of course?

Please also clarify if you received any error messages? What exact error messages? When exactly have you received them?

Having collected the above information please submit a request for technical support with the subject indicating that you want to contact Aleksandr Isakov. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov