Noob with Pre installation questions

Just dl'd the trial version of DD.

I have a big drive, 320gb. Iwould like to have 5 bootable partitions. So what I though I would do is this: Take a small , clean drive (6gb) & install a clean & updated OS with my software. Usin DD create my partitions on the big drive.
Then Using Acronis TI v9 clone the drive 5 times, once to each partition. Then use DD's boot manager to select the OS I need to use. Will this work?

I hade in the past tried this with Ghost & Partition Majic. It would not work because the additional OS's needed to be installed THRU Partion Majic or It would always boot to the same OS>

 

Hello selkov,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Partition and Disk Managing Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

Yes, everything you have described is possible. Just one thing we should note:
Please be aware that it will not be possible to clone a hard drive to a partition. Acronis True Image allows to clone entiry hard drives only. If you wish to transfer an operating system to several partitions then we recommend you to follow this scheme:

- Prepare your Windows for transferring using Microsoft System Preparation Tool (sysprep) as it is described in this FAQ article;
- Create an image of the prepared Windows and then restore this image to the desired location (a partition on the new drive);

We would also like to recommend you to read the respective User's Guide which you can download from the Documentation section of our web site. It can be very helpful for you.

If you have any further questions please feel free to ask.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko

 

Thanks,,
I can do that.
My concern really is weather Disk Director will recognize the different loactions to boot from.

Basically windows boot.ini on all the partions reads the same & will boot to the initial partition.

Will disk director be able to re write or somethin the ini file so that in truth it does boot to different partions?

 

Hello selkov,

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

Please be aware that in case you clone/restore an image of your prepared operating system to a new location on the same computer then you should make the appropriate changes (add a new operating system) in the boot.ini file manually. Please take a look at this article describing how to edit the boot.ini file.

Acronis OS Selector will recognize new operating system automatically after the changes in the boot.ini file were performed.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko

 

The article tou refered me to is for windows XP. I am on windows 2000 Pro.
Editing the INI file is no issue.
But just what do I change?

 

Hello selkov,

Here is the article where the process of boot.ini editing is described for Windows 2000.

You just need to add the appropriate string to the file for you new operating system. For example your current boot.ini file is:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000" /fastdetect

If you restore an image of this operating system to the second partition of your hard drive then you should add the following string to the end of the file:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 (2)" /fastdetect

So the file should look like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 (2)" /fastdetect

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko

 

Thanks

 

Acronis,

One more question came to mind!
If I format three paritions, a copy of the Boot.ini file resides in each one.
I assume I need to corevt the three of them to be the same, Right?

 

Hello selkov,

Actually you need to edit only one boot.ini, the one that resides on active partition.

Thank you.
--
Anton Sherkhonov

 

OK.
But if I use the OSS selector to choose a diferent OS (partition2) will that not now become the active partition & as such is that boot.ini not incorrect?

 

Hello Selkov,

Thank you for using Acronis Disk Management Software

You can see the answer on your question here.

Thank you
--
Alexander Gladkov