OS Selector - New User

Discussion in 'Acronis Disk Director Suite' started by LarryR, Jul 13, 2007.

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  1. LarryR

    LarryR Registered Member

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    I am a new Acronis Disk Director user and have a few questions regarding OS Selector. My configuration: Disk 0 has three primary partitions, Partition 1-WinXP Pro, Partition 2-Vista 32Bit, and Partition 3-Vista 64Bit. All three were installed with the others hidden so that each boots using the C:\ Drive. I had been using Partition Magic 8 to switch between partitions but with Vista I decided to try Acronis. While booted into Vista 32Bit (Partition 2) I installed Disk Director and OS Selector. OS Selector found the three bootable partitions .. however the properties for the WinXP partition (Partition 1) shows Partition 1 as drive letter C:\ and Partition 2 as Drive letter D:\ and the folders point to D:\. I can't seem to modify this.

    Do I need to uninstall OS Selector and install Disk Director to the WinXP Partition? What I want is the ability to boot any of the three primary partitions and have the others hidden.
    Thank you,
    Larry
     
  2. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    Are you using the latest build of DD/OSS (2,160)?

    Do your two Vista OSS menu entries boot correctly?
    It's only the XP one that is messed up?

    When you say "the folders point to D:\" you mean the folders in the Properties for XP menu entry? (The ones that should be C:\Program Files; C:\Windows; etc.)

    You could remove the D:\... folders from the list and then manually add the correct C:\... entries. (If you're not using the "Copy OS" feature, I don't think those folders don't really matter.) That might be the easiest way. Once the D:\ references are removed, you should be able to hide the D: partition.
    oss_xpfolders.JPG

    Is Partition #1 check as Active for XP?
    oss_xpactive.jpg
     
  3. LarryR

    LarryR Registered Member

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    Thank you for the prompt reply. At this time the only Partition that will boot with OS Selector is Vista 32Bit (Partition-2 Disk-1). Neither WinXP or Vista 64Bit can be booted using OS Selector but I can boot any of the three by booting from the Acronis Boot CD, running Disk Director and manually change the active partition and unhide it and hide the others. It works this way but is a lot more time consumming than using OS Selector if I can get it working. Right now I would like to get the WinXP and Vista 32Bit partitions working. I am attaching some screen shots to help explain where things stand. By the way I did try to remove the D:\ referenced folders and was able to remove D:\windows but not the others, clicking on remove did nothing. Do I have to add the folders in the config for WinXP first?
     

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  4. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    OSS has cross-linked your partitions (I hate it when it does that...). Notice on your XP setup that the checkered flag is NOT on the C: partition? That's why OSS won't let you hide that partition or delete the other D:\ folders.

    Can you please attach the bootwiz.oss file?
    It may be able to be fixed to correct the problems. The file is located in the BOOTWIZ folder in the partition in which OSS is installed. You may have to enable viewing of Hidden and System files in Windows Explorer to find it.
     
  5. LarryR

    LarryR Registered Member

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    Had to open and change it to a TXT file but here it is:
     

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  6. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    Okay, the first thing to try is to edit the bootwiz.oss file to fix all the "active"/"hidden" entries. I noticed quite a few and they cause all kinds of problems, including not letting you make the changes you need to make.

    Save a backup of the current bootwiz.oss file.

    Open the file using Windows Notepad.

    These are the sections you need to change. They are located in the <oses> section. Each menu entry has one. Here is one of your Vista entries and I've bolded the part that is wrong:

    Code:
    		<id3153272122 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="895061938" bootname="bootsect.sys" icon="icon_sys_vista" language="english" lba="1" name_template="Windows Vista 64Bit" nthide="0" os_type="ntvista" system_root_identifier="000000000000000000000000000000000600000000000000480000000000000000b0b38813000000000000000000000000000000010000008952895200000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\Windows" uninstall_info="1" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="1">
    			<partitions>
    				<id1658846060 hidden="1" />
    				<id895061938 active="1" [B]hidden="1"[/B] />
    				<id373487851 hidden="1" />
    				<id210456908 active="1" [B]hidden="1"[/B] />
    				<id3663882533 hidden="1" />
    			</partitions>
    		</id3153272122>
    It should be like this:

    Code:
    		<id3153272122 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="895061938" bootname="bootsect.sys" icon="icon_sys_vista" language="english" lba="1" name_template="Windows Vista 64Bit" nthide="0" os_type="ntvista" system_root_identifier="000000000000000000000000000000000600000000000000480000000000000000b0b38813000000000000000000000000000000010000008952895200000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\Windows" uninstall_info="1" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="1">
    			<partitions>
    				<id1658846060 hidden="1" />
    				<id895061938 active="1" />
    				<id373487851 hidden="1" />
    				<id210456908 active="1" />
    				<id3663882533 hidden="1" />
    			</partitions>
    		</id3153272122>
    This is caused by a bug in OSS. Once you remove the "hidden" attribute from the active partition(s), you should be able to set the settings how you need to in OSS.

    So, fix all of the active="1" hidden="1" entries to just be active="1" and then start OSS and check the properties for the menu entries to make sure the settings are correct. The booting partition for each entry should be checked as "active" and NOT "hidden". You can mark the other partitions as hidden as you wish per your system setup.

    The main thing is to MAKE SURE the BOOTING PARTITION IS NOT MARKED HIDDEN. In the example above the booting partition is 895061938. You can tell by checking the value for the boot_partition="895061938" field in the first line of the menu entry.

    If you have other OS's installed in active partitions and the installs are isolated, then you'll want to mark them hidden. In the case of the above entry you could probably leave the 210456908 marked hidden as it is not the booting partition.

    It's usually just easier to fix them all and then use OSS to check off the partitions you need to hide for each OS.

    ----

    You XP entry also looks wrong. It looks like it was detected as Vista. See the bolded parts below:

    Code:
    		<id206185836 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="210456908" bootname="bootsect.sys" [B]icon="icon_sys_vista"[/B] language="english" lba="1" name_template="Windows XP Professional" nthide="0" [B]os_type="ntvista"[/B] [B]system_root_identifier="000000000000000000000000000000000600000000000000480000000000000000d859c409000000000000000000000000000000010000008952895200000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\Windows"[/B] uninstall_info="1" use_manual_disks_order="1" write_boot="1">
    			<partitions>
    				<id1658846060 active="1" />
    				<id895061938 hidden="1" />
    				<id373487851 hidden="1" />
    				<id210456908 active="1" hidden="1" />
    				<id3663882533 hidden="1" />
    			</partitions>
    			<disks>
    				<disk bios_num="129" id="1940257230" />
    				<disk bios_num="128" id="4138248712" />
    				<disk bios_num="130" id="3432725599" />
    				<disk bios_num="131" id="2082330829" />
    			</disks>
    		</id206185836>
    A normal XP entry looks like this:

    Code:
    		<id1605370137 boot_as_ms71="0" boot_as_os2="0" boot_cd_entry="0" boot_partition="811448379" bootname="bootsect.sys" [B]icon="icon_sys_win"[/B] language="english" lba="1" [B]multi="multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS"[/B] name_template="XP - Games" nthide="0" [B]os_type="ntxp"[/B] uninstall_info="1" use_manual_disks_order="0" write_boot="1">
    			<partitions>
    				<id3178522466 hidden="1" />
    				<id811448379 active="1" />
    				<id1002412294 hidden="1" />
    				<id353106529 active="1" />
    			</partitions>
    		</id1605370137>
    You'll probably need to edit your XP entry so it has the correct values in the bolded sections above. You'll have your own IDs, etc., but the rest is standard.

    I'm assuming these are "isolated" installs. If XP is booting via Vista's bootloader then it may be correct as is and just fixing the "hidden" bug may make it work. If XP is actually booting from the Vista partition, then you won't be able to hide that partition.

    Hopefully, this information will help. I think if you get the changes made it should work okay.
     
  7. LarryR

    LarryR Registered Member

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    Well I made the indicated changes to the bootwiz.oss file ... started up OSS and while some things were fixed I still couldn't remove the D:\ folder references from the WinXP partition boot entry. At this point I have both lost faith and patience with the product and do not want to risk having to restore rebuild this system. So I uninstalled OSS and went back to my old tried and true procedure of using Partition Magic (running from a bootable CD) to change the active partition (which automatically changes the previously active partition to hidden). It is fast enough and works. By the way I found another issue with OSS. Apparantly when it installed it changed the partition table entries on all four disks to mark change large (crosses 1024 Cylinder boundary) partitions from ExtendedX to Extended. Changed them back.

    Perhaps I will try again down the road when a further (hopefully better) release comes out. I would guess that my problem may be due to my having a primary disk (with three primary partitions) and a backup disk (with backup copies of the above three partitions) all marked hidden.

    I really appreciate your time and energy. You have been great. Hope to work with you again soon.
    Cheers-Larry
     
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