Disk Selector did not last long here...

Not impressed with Acronis Disk Selector. Have Win XP SP3, Win7 RC1 and

Ubunutu all on their own hard drives.

Installed it on the XP partition and rebooted. Was able to use the ps/2 mouse ok but then the problems started. I rebooted after selecting XP as the
default os and a timeout of 20 seconds.

Ubuntu booted fine however I was no longer able to use the mouse to navigate through the Disk Selector menu. I have to use the keyboard to navigate OS Selector. As well there were now two Linux items in the Disk Selector menu! Selecting Windows cause the ntoskrnl.exe not found please install a copy of this file. I made sure that this entry was using the right primary partition.

In order to get the computer back under control I deactivated Disk Selector and had no problem booting into XP!

 

Hello there,

Did you install DD/OSS after you already partitioned the drives and installed the OS's? I am not sure of a thread that may apply to your situation somewhat. I just don't want to send you on a WGC.

BarJabba

 

Yes I did and I am now in the process of trying to fix the XP disk so it is bootable. Tried OS Selector once more and once more the product only was able to boot the linux. It also kept finding additional os and so I deactivated it and now XP will not boot. A fixboot anf fixmbr does not help.

 

Did you make sure the XP partition was set Active?

How were you booting your operating systems before you installed OSS? This can make a big difference in how OSS detects them.

If XP was installed and you then installed Windows 7, it would most likely take over the booting of XP.

If you still want help on this, can you post a screenshot of what DD shows for your partitions (in Manual Mode) and also post the BOOTWIZ.OSS file (instructions can be found here)? It may help to see them.

 

Sorry but how am I suppose to be able to run any windows applications if the XP will not boot?

Each version of windows was installed on its own partition and the bios Boot Option was being used to select which hard drive to boot from. Then I installed OS Selector and could not get it to boot into either Win7 nor XP so I deactivated OS Selector. XP does not boot at all and I have spent close to 3 hours trying to fix it.

 

While trying to repair the XP drive so it will boot, are you recreating the same setup?

Have you booted to the DD CD and started DD (in Manual Mode) and checked if the XP partition is set Active? If it's not, then set it Active and apply the change.

Have you tried disconnecting the other drives (leaving only the XP drive connected) and setting the XP drive as the booting drive in the BIOS and then running the fixmbr and fixboot commands from the XP RC?

What error message/problem is occurring when you try to boot the XP drive?

 

yes

Yes it is Primary and Active. One of the first things I checked.

Yes and the result is that the drive fails to boot without any messages or it says NTLDR is missing. Even if I copy the ntldr and ntdetect off the XP cd to the appropriate directories. Also replaced the boot.ini file.

Currently getting no errors. The cursor just sits flashing.

Also why does OS software not work with a ps/2 mouse forcing one to navigate with the keyboard ?

 

I made sure that boot order was correct in the bios and pointing to the right drive. I had tried to boot with the XP cd and attempt to do a repair reinstall on the XP install only to be told that there is no windows xp compatible partition on the boot drive.

I disconnected the 2nd hard drive which has partitions with data on them. The system boots fine!

 

How many physical drives do you have in the computer? Was this drive not disconnected when you tried the boot repair before?

Is your keyboard PS2 or USB? Do you know if Legacy USB support is turned on in the BIOS?

 

Normally I would have 4 physical hard drives ( 3 of these drives have o/s installed XP, Win7 RC1 and Ubunutu) with the 4th hard drive being for data only, but since this problem with OS Selector I disconnected the Win7x and Ubuntu and just had the XP and data hard drives connected.

With only the XP drive hooked up I notice that before XP starts to load that there is a messaging saying I think "MB Erorr 2" that very quickly flashes in the the lower left corner of the monitor before XP starts to load. I also notice that OS Selector still has a short cut on my desktop. Is there any way of determining or making sure that there are no pieces of OS selector still installed? I do notice that there is a shortcut on my Windows desktop to OS Selector.

Keyboard and mouse are both PS/2. I looked and could not find any such option in the BIOS.

 

If you're getting an MBR Error # message when the drive boots, the MBR code is probably still not correct. OSS usually causes the #3 error, though.

I would do the XP RC boot repair again (fixmbr, fixboot) after making sure the XP drive is the only drive connected and set as the booting drive. Leave the data drive disconnected and try booting the XP drive.

The OSS shortcut will remain on your desktop. Deactivating OSS won't remove it.

Deleting the BOOTWIZ folders from your partitions will remove the OSS files. The main folder is hidden and on the partition to which you installed OSS (usually, the Windows partition).

 

Ok thanks that fixed the problem. I can not also boot with the data drive connected.

By partitions do you mean from any partition on a hard drive which there is a bootable o/s? Is the main folder also called BOOTWIZ?

Guess I will have to stick with the BIOS boot selection option to boot these o/s. Too bad because OSS would of been nice but it did not like my setup and not working with a ps/2 mouse is a problem.

 

After reconnecting the data drive, have you rechecked that the boot order in the BIOS hasn't changed? Some will change automatically.

What error message/problem happens when you boot with just the XP and data drives connected? If the XP drive boots properly by itself, it should still boot properly when the other drive is connected (assuming the XP drive is still the booting drive).

What drive letter is assigned to the XP partition? What drive letter(s) is/are assigned to the data partition(s) on the data drive?

By partitions, I mean any partition (check them all). OSS will place a BOOTWIZ folder on most partitions. The main folder is also named BOOTWIZ. It contains many files and usually several folders (the others usually only contain one file). The main folder is hidden so you'll have to enable viewing of hidden and system files to find it (instructions can be found here).

OSS just does not work well on some systems. It's long overdue for an update and, hopefully, some bug fixes, but Acronis has not publically released anything recent for OSS or DD.

Not being able to use a mouse does make it more difficult, especially when you're still trying to get things setup.

 

Duh! I meant to say that I can now boot with the data hard drive connected, which I could not earlier today.

Thanks for all the help.