How to add Windows 7 beta to OS Selector?

When I've done this, Windows 7 creates a separate booting partition. (I assume you mean unallocated space.)

Is the boot manager the XP boot manager? You'd need to check each XP installation and see if one of them shows Windows 7 as an option.

This is what I would recommend, though I would deactivate (don't uninstall) OSS before beginning. When the partition exists already, Windows 7 will install everything into that partition.

If you browse the Windows 7 partition (you can boot to DD to do this, if necessary), does it have the bootmgr file in the root folder and does it have the BOOT folder containing the BCD file?

 

I've deleted my Windows 7 partition and the bootloader and tried a fresh install.
First I've hidden all XP-Installation on my first disk (one is always active).

Then I've create a new empty primary NTFS-Partition on my second harddisk and have deactivate the OSS.

After rebooting the pc and start from Windows 7 disk I've tried to install Win7. I'm not able to install Windows 7 on my new partition.

Nordlicht

 

Make sure the Windows 7 partition is set as Active. You may also need to set the Windows 7 drive as the booting drive in the BIOS until the installation is complete and you're ready to reactivate OSS.

 

Is it ok to create an empty NTFS partition to install windows 7 ?

After preparing it's like this (I've to set the second disk as boot drive in the BIOS):

 

It should be. I've done it without any problems so far.

 

It's working !!! I've edited the BOOTWIZ.OSS and it's working too...

Thank you

Nordlicht

 

Glad to hear it and you're welcome.

I assume you set the original drive back as the booting drive.

 

Yes, I've set the original drive back as booting drive and activate OSS

 

Windows 7 will not boot for me after I reactivate OSS and try to make changes to the bootwiz.oss file. It's a similar issue to post #29.

HDD Setup:
HD1(300GB) - My data drive. Its IDE
HD2(40GB) - Test drive. I just test Operating systems. Its IDE
HD3(600GB) - RAID0 array of 2 HDs. They are SATA. Used for XP, Vista and gaming XP OS.


Before installing Windows 7, I have to go into my BIOS to change the HD boot order in order to install it on HD2 as well. I have to put HD2 first, than HD1 and than HD3 will be last. I had to do this process when I installed XP SP3 on HD2. I have attached my bootwiz.oss file. This was taken after changing boot order in BIOS to original and reactivating OSS.

Below is what the Windows 7 partition looks like in the oss file. It chooses my other Vista partition(2191853553) as the boot partition...which is incorrect. My Windows 7 partition is 1618572713.

Can someone help me with this please?

Code:

</id2008010931>
		<id1331219865 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="2191853553" bootname="bootsect.sys" icon="icon_sys_vista" language="english" lba="1" name_template="Windows 7 Beta" nthide="0" os_type="ntvista" [COLOR="Red"]system_root_identifier="000000000000000000000000000000000600000000000000480000000000000000d617e22f00000000000000000000000000000001000000d608d70800000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\Windows"[/COLOR] use_manual_disks_order="1" write_boot="1">
			<partitions>
				<id2863453766 hidden="1" />
				<id2129764055 hidden="1" />
				<id3610015340 hidden="1" />
				<id2491428781 hidden="1" />
				<id2191853553 active="1" hidden="1" />
				<id1618572713 active="1" />
			</partitions>
			<disks>
				<disk bios_num="130" id="2282139114" />
				<disk bios_num="129" id="3772696583" />
				<disk bios_num="128" id="1049094915" />
			</disks>
		</id1331219865>

I dont know what this entry is below. I never tried to install Linux. When I try to delete this entry, it messes up OSS than next time I start it. It removes all entries except for my test XP SP3 install and my Vista install.

Code:

<id2008010931 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" bootname="bootsect.sys" icon="icon_sys_linux" language="" lba="1" name_template="%n%l %l(%ll%l)" nthide="0" os_type="linuxmbr" use_manual_disks_order="1" write_boot="0">
			<partitions>
				<id2863453766 hidden="1" />
				<id2129764055 hidden="1" />
				<id3610015340 hidden="1" />
				<id2191853553 active="1" />
			</partitions>
			<disks>
				<disk bios_num="129" id="2282139114" />
				<disk bios_num="128" id="3772696583" />
				<disk bios_num="130" id="1049094915" />
			</disks>
		</id2008010931>

 

Try this file and see if it works. I make several changes. I corrected the Windows 7 booting partition along with a few other changes and removed the Disk Order option. You can't use that with OSS and Vista (and, I assume, Windows 7) without causing problems.

When you changed the drive order and installed Windows 7, I assume you also hid all the other OS partitions. Hopefully, the Windows 7 boot manager didn't get installed into the Vista partition.

If the "Linux" OS entry is causing problems when it's removed and you don't want it in your menu, just hide it instead of deleting it.

 

MudCrab...you are the Acronis god!!! lol


Thanks, that worked perfectly. Im loving Windows 7. I been playing around with it on my Dell laptop.

 

I have the same problem getting OSS to recognise my newly installed Win 7 install. Like most, I installed it over my old Vista partition and let the win7 installer format it. I've even uninstalled OSS and reinstalled hoping it would find it, I even installed it running from Win7 and it couldn't see itself.

My primary disk has 3 OSes; Win7 in #1, XPSP3 in #2, XPSP2 in #3 - the remainder is hidden except for a small 25M part at the end for OSS to live in and a second drive with no OSes, just data

here's my bootwiz.oss, any help getting it recognised in the menu would be most appreciated - thanks

 

bjjones,

Here is the modified file. Hopefully, it will work for you.

I'm assuming that Windows 7 is booting from its own partition. I setup it up to hide the XP partitions and added hiding of the Windows 7 partition to the XP entries. If you want to change what's hidden from what, do it after you have booted successfully into Windows 7.

 

Hallo Mudcrab,
sorry, i must have installed windows 7 again. Now i can´t start windows 7 with OSS.
My partitons are in post #16 (page 1), Windows 7 = k.
Here is my new bootwiz:
Please help me again. Please can you give me the correct bootwiz.
Thanks a lot.
rabadumpf

 

Here is the file again. Note that if the partition gets reformatted, the ID saved in the BOOTWIZ folder will be lost and OSS will create a new one (which won't match the original).

In your case, the partition ID changed from 1221497402 to 1312277007. If it happens again, you just need to update the two entries in the Windows 7 OS section to reference the correct partition:

<partitions> section (your Windows 7 partition):

Code:

		<id[B][COLOR="Red"]1312277007[/COLOR][/B] begin="251674290" crc="8403" disk="3531403911" fs="ntfs" number="3" serial="eac1e550f9e550b4" size="254710575" type="7" />

<oses> section, Windows 7 entry (two changes needed):

Code:

		<id3761929613 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="[B][COLOR="red"]1312277007[/COLOR][/B]" bootname="bootsect.sys" icon="icon_sys_vista" language="english" lba="1" locked="1" name_template="Windows 7 Beta" nthide="0" os_type="ntvista" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="0">
			<partitions
				<id[B][COLOR="red"]1312277007[/COLOR][/B] active="1" />
			</partitions>
		</id3761929613>

 

Thanks MudCrab for your help. Great!
Very interesting your post. So i can change myself.
Rabadumpf

 

MudCrab -thanks for the help on getting Win 7 recognised. I got that all working and all the OSes show up where I can work with them in OSS now.

One thing that I've been struggling with all day is that when OSS starts up on boot it hangs on the "processing please wait" box for a long time, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes before it brings up OSS, then once it's up I can't access any of the features from the OSS menu - none will open. My mouse moves around but it's like OSS isn't seeing it. When I do click on any of the OSes it reacts to that and boots that OS. I went as far as thinking I may have somehow gotten a virus into the OSS partition but it checks clean. Once in any of the OSes OSS works normally, it's only when it's in the "booting up" phase from its own partition before it launches an OS that it acts odd. Have you ever seen this behaviour before and is there something I should look for - it used to boot up within a few seconds. OH, and this had nothing to do with your changes, those work perfectly, it started this around when I added a second drive.

thanks again for the WIN 7 help - BJ

 

OSS does that sometimes. I'm not sure exactly what causes it. If you disconnect the second drive, does OSS return to being fast and responsive? Is everything okay with the second drive (no chkdsk errors, etc.)?

You could try disabling the CD-ROM support in OSS. Also, if you don't have a floppy drive and the controller is turned on in the BIOS, you could try turning off the controller.

 

I'm not understanding how to edit the bootwiz.oss. My Win7 is not detected by OSS. I currently have XP and Vista on separate SATA drives, both works fine in OSS. Win7 is installed on a third IDE drive, and not detected. Please help, bootwiz.txt attached.

 

bebopblues,

There are over 20 hard drives in the BOOTWIZ.OSS file and all but two are tagged as Removed. XP is on one and Vista is on the other.

Is the Windows 7 IDE drive currently connected? Was it connected when you made the copy of the BOOTWIZ.OSS file? Without knowing which drive it is, I can't make the necessary changes.

You would need to make sure the IDE drive is connected, powers on with the system, etc. and then boot into OSS (so the drive is detected) followed by booting into XP or Vista. Then create a new copy of the BOOTWIZ.OSS file.

 

slow processing problem - MudCrab, your genius strikes again ! disabled the CD Support check box and everythings back to normal. I hadn't made the association before but when I added the second drive I also replaced my IDE DVD drive with a SATA BD one at the same time, OSS must not treat SATA burners the same way. Problem solved - THANKS - BJ

 

I know its a mess since I connected many drives to the PC over the years. I just cleaned it up by removing all the "removed' entries.

For whatever reason, OSS is not generating the correct context.oss file for it. All it shows is the partition ID and not the disk ID

I did all that, OSS still would not generate the disk ID for the IDE drive in the context.oss file of the Win7 drive. So I analyzed the bootwiz.oss file and figured it out. First, I copied the Bootwiz folder from the Vista drive to the Win7 drive and overwrote it. Then I edited the context.oss file in the Win7 drive and changed the partition ID to match the one in the bootwiz.oss file. Then I changed the last digit of the disk ID number. After that, I opened the bootwiz.oss file, and copied and the Vista parameters and pasted it below it. And changed the disk and partition ID number to match the ones in the context.oss file in the Win7 drive. Saved the bootwiz.oss files, rebooted the computer and went into OSS, and there it is, the Windows7 icon, and it now boots.

Much of the OSS headaches can be eliminated if there's an easy guide that explains disk and partition IDs and how to edit the bootwiz.oss file, and with sample bootwiz.oss and context.oss files to edit.

 

Hi, I'm just reading the forums on adding Win7 to Acronis OSS.
I've installed it on Disk 3 and let the installation create a 100GB partition - it also created a 100MB partition "system Reserved" in partition 1 and the Windows in partition 2. Vista and XP are installed on disk 1, with OSS installed in its own partition on disk 1 (partition 2) with Vista in Partition 1 and XP in partition 3. Disk 2 contains just Data partitions. I have retrieved bootwiz.oss from a Ghost image of the boot partition, following the sequence of your other forum topics. I am using an ASUS PN5-E SLI motherboard which allows you to boot from any partition (pressing F8 during POST to display a boot menu of disks) but I would like to be able to multiboot using OSS!

 

SDave,

There are only two drives showing up in the attached file. You have to use a current copy of the file from when it was running in its current configuration. Any changes made to this file will most likely be ignored or removed.

If OSS is installed, you need to reactivate it and reboot so it can see the Windows 7 drive. Then post again with the updated file.

XP and Vista are in the file you attached. Were they booting okay with OSS prior to installing Windows 7?

Since you're saying Windows 7 created its own boot partition (it will do this on an empty drive), it may also help to see a screenshot of what Windows 7 Disk Management shows for your drives.

 

HI, THANKS FOR YOUR REPLY.
Here are the files you requested.

Dave