lost Vista OS

Hi, I have DD10 running on Vista and wanted to install XP on a new partition. So I installed OSS but now when the PC boots I cannot see any os and cannot return to Vista at all. The F6 option just loads OSS and doesnt skip it. Also I cant deactivate OSS as I need to provide a default OS which I cannot do. I expect I am doing something dumb but currently I have a useless PC

 

Do you have Vista install DVDs?
If yes, you can try to "repair"; I am not sure of details because I dont have Vista dvd (just a recovery partition), but there are good recent threads about this.

I have the same exact problem see thread OSS- cant use it, cant remove it.

 

Thanks for your reply. Yes I have the Vista dvd and tried the repair option but Windows returns "no issue found". So I know Vista is on the disk its just that OSS for some reason cant see it.

It appears that the only option I have is to recover the PC from archive but I only want to do this if it is the only answer.

 

Mike, before you give up and start over here are some risky radical things you could try...

You could try using the recovery DD cd to create a new first partition, if your lucky (like I was) the new Vista will be installed there and it will leave your old (second) Vista partition alone.

Also, you could try using recovery DD to >Explore the running Vista partition. Delete or rename the files OSS uses, like OS_selector.exe on c:\progFiles\acronis\DD for example. So OSS wont be able to run. I have had some success with this method before, on the next boot I got some message like "Windows is trying to fix problem".... takes a long time, but reboots properly and OSS is gone. This could be fixed by my HP Pavilion Recovery partition, so may not work on a regular Vista install.

Hang on for a while though, I am new with DD/OSS and there are other very helpfull posters here who may have a more definitive answer.

mangoMan

 

oh yeah....
You probably have but, try messing around with the F6 button during boot.
It can be tricky to hit it not too soon, not to late, usually I keep tapping it about 3 time a second just be fore the "enter BIOS" message goes away.