Can any Acronis software help me achieve this?

I have a multiboot system (4 x XP Pro NTFS), and am trying to find out, before purchasing, whether the new Disk Director Suite will help me achieve the following.

My Primary SATA HD (SI3112 - not supported in TI7 yet) is configured as:

100mb C; Primary Active FAT16 Partition (For system boot files)
25gb D: Logical NTFS Partition XP Pro Main System
25gb Logical NTFS Partition XP Pro Games System
25gb Logical NTFS Partition XP Pro Test System
25gb Logical NTFS Partition XP Pro Internet System

I want to be able to Install the OS once, then copy the partition three times, then be able to boot into any of them. I am aware that to achieve this, I need to hide three of the logical partitions from whichever OS is booting. This ensures that whichever partition is booted, will be the D: drive, thus avoiding any problems due to drive letter changes, not to mention many others.

I was able to experiment with Disk Director on a mates pc, but was unable to get it to work. I did however learn that DDS9 OS Selector only recognises a new OS, copied in the above way, when you manually add the partition details in the boot.ini file.

However, when I tried to boot into this new copy, I get as far as the pre logging in stage in XP, and it hangs before the login box should appear. I have checked the properties to ensure that the original partition was hidden, forcing the new copied OS to be D.

I know I can achieve what I want with a combination of other programs, but I like the look and feel of Acronis software... OS Selector 8 was able to do this, by hidding the other logical partitions from the one you were booting to, but I did not like the look of the bootscreen GUI. However, the new OS Selector in DDS9 looks fantastic, but I cant seem to get it to work the way its predecessor did.

I just want to be able to quickly restore any of the OS partitions with a single image, and boot into any of them, without having to instal XP four times.

I have been trying to find an alternative to www.hyperos2002.com, as it is far too pricey, and has too many functions I would not use.

Can anyone offer any advice or info...

Thanks

 

Hello Batfink --

Thank you for taking the time to contact us and for your interest in Acronis
products!

Please can you describe the exact sequense of actions that led to the copied partition being not bootable? After I have it i'll either be able to correct the mistake or propose some other way to do the desired job.

Thank you.

--
Best regards,
Anton Gromov

Acronis, Inc.
395 Oyster Point Blvd. Suite 213
South San Francisco
CA 94080 USA
http://www.acronis.com/

Acronis... Compute with confidence

 

Thanks for helping... but after a couple of days of trial and error, and many many system rebuilds, I think I have got it all working...

The so called "manual" did not help in any way, in fact, all that this provided was a written description of the options you can see in the program. Nothing telling you how OS Selector (DDS() worked, or how to configure it for sepecific needs...

I can achieve what I want by installing a clean OS on D logical partition (boot files on C), then taking an image of my D drive. I can then install DDS9 incl OS Selector. I then need to disable file protection (which from observation simply moves several key OS folders into the BootWiz dir - I assume to prevent interference from other OSs), and also remove these folders from the options for the OS. I no longer then get the BootWiz dir, which I think may have been causing the problems when I was duplicatiing.

I can then copy the image onto another logical partition. I must also hide these logical partitions from each other, to prevent drive letter changes. I then add a single line to the boot.ini, telling it that there is another OS on a different partition. Then when I run OS Selector, it picks up the new OS, so I then remove the folders from the OS options, and hide the original OS on my first logical partition.

All works fine, I now have multiple instances of a single OS install, all independant and invisible to each other, so there are no problems.

Thanks for assisting, and if there is anything you could tell me to explain what OS Selector actually does, or how it works... it may make things a lot clearer. The manual and in program help are pretty useless, they are more like a glossary of the terms used in the app, and not how to use them, what they do, or how they work.

Cheers

 

Hello --

Hmm do you refer to the User's Guide - http://www.acronis.com/pdf/diskdirectorsuite9.0_ug.en.pdf, when you speak about "manual"?

I apologize that I wasn't of much help here... Please see the information in that Guide about OS Selector and ask any questions if you have any.

Thank you.

Best regards,
Anton Gromov

Acronis, Inc.
395 Oyster Point Blvd. Suite 213
South San Francisco
CA 94080 USA
http://www.acronis.com/

Acronis... Compute with confidence