Making Vista visible to Acronis OS Selector: A Simpler Solution

Information available at the bottom here, under "Supported operating systems":
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/

You could still try the workaround I posted above, but you should insist that Acronis fix this problem; they will probably ask you to send a report so they know the details of your system.

 

If you just want to have a Dual Boot beetween Vista and XP, wether these OS's are in separated hard drives or just different partitions the solution is very hard:

Install the software Acronis Suite 10 that includes OS Selector ( OSS ) in Windows Vista

Done! Vista detected!

Eventually, the only thing you will then have to do is to delete the XP2 entry that was initially created and use the Wizard to detect XP again..

Problem Solved,
Greetings from Portugal

 

The method I outlined many months ago was for a previous version which didn't recognize Vista at all.

I've not had the complications many have at making Vista recognized with the newer version (2160), even though AOSS isn't installed in Vista (in fact I installed AOSS in a non-system partition, so that wiping out vista or xp won't affect it).
It all depends on how Vista is installed on a system that already has XP or 2K.
For as long as I remember about windows (and especially WinNT-like windows), it was always better to hide a previous windows system partition before installing a new one, if one wanted to use a third-party boot manager; this way one avoids many annoyances... That's what AOSS tries to do if you let it manage the OS installation (although I prefer to control this myself).

 

Hello, I need a bit of help here
I have a 400 GB HD SATA SAMSUNG divided in 10 partitions of 40 GB each. I originally used Acronis Disk Director 10 Build 2089, which works perfectly for Windows XP, as I am in Brazil, I use the English and Portuguese versions of this operating system.
Recently I aquired Acronis Disk Director Suite, Build 2160. One of the bugs I noticed, where I backed up my data and formatted the 10 partitions, was after I installed Windows XP and used the OS Selector, this XP was identified as a "Unknown operating system", I had to unistall 2160, install the 2089 and afterward upgrade to the 2160 in question.
I installed Windows Vista, and it is visible to the OS Selector, but after choosing any of the installed OS's, I just get a blinking cursor.

Any help on this?
Thanks

 

You may need to uninstall OSS and reinstall again. Also, make sure when booted to OSS that the build shows 2,160. I've had the earlier build show up before even though it had been updated. I've had better sucess installing OSS from Windows.

If you can't boot, you can also boot from the Vista DVD and to a boot repair. Then, once back in Vista see if you can get OSS working again. Either uninstall, reinstall or try and just reativate.

If you get the "Unknown" OS entry for XP, take a look at this thread. It may be fairly easy to fix and you may not have to uninstall OSS or try and redetect.

 

Dear Sir, thanks for your post, The Aconis OS included with the Disk Director 10 Build 2160, works perfectly with VISTA. My problem, that I found out, after much trial and error, is that , maybe due to my version of the Windows Vista em Portuguese, which I think as of being very strange, technological advancements and the works, DOES NOT give the due support to SATA Drives, because, I installed a small disk drive IDE (40 GB) and after the installation, It worked. If I leave only the SATA drive of 400 GB, I can install on any of the 10 partions, inclusive of the primary partition, it does not work..

Thanks.. keep me posted on this one
Neil

 

Hi all, I have a 120 GB on my toshiba laptop (Satellite A80, with 1GB and ATIx300 64MB), and I have splitted the hard drive into 3 primary partitions and 2 logical partitions. I installed XP on first primary (20GB), Vista on the secondary (25GB), and MacOS X Tiger 10.4.8 on the third (10GB).
the first logical would be the data (55GB) and I installed Linux Ubuntu 7.04 on the second logical (10GB). and it ALL work fine!..

The only problem is, I can not make the Vista show up on Acronis OS Selector Menu. I use the latest version of AOSS (10.2160) and installed on first primary where I put XP on it.

I've tried the suggestion on this thread and Vista still won't showed up on AOSS menu. What should I do? thanks.

 

why don't you use your Ubuntu's grub?

Anyway, did you follow the method of section 8.2 of DiskDirector's User Guide for multiple windows installation?

 

I have the same problem:
1. Vista on new Dell 1720 notebook, 2x160 GB drives
2. Installed Disk Director & True Image
3. Backup CD will only load the "Full" programs with the "acpi=off noapic" patch
4. When running from backup CD, full DD doesn't see the hard drives, but the Safe version does. Everything works properly when running under Windows.
5. Repartitioned in preparation for Linux install - no problems
6. Created backup image of Vista partition on 2nd hard drive - no problems
7. Installed OSS (build 10.0 - build 2160) to get Vista to boot with OSS before installing Linux (no plans on having multiple Windows versions).
8. On reboot to complete the OSS installation, Vista wasn't recognized, and I had to do a recovery from the backups. Drive letters were changed, the Vista partiton was made inactive (the "new" C: partition was now active), etc. A real PITA that I don't want to go through again without a reasonable chance of success.

Even though some say that OSS on DD 10.0 now works with Vista, it looks like it still isn't reliable for everyone. It looks like I should just use the GRUB loader as was suggested earlier, but I thought that I would make one last check to see if there is an easy fix for my OSS problem.

My questions:
1. Should I just forget about using OSS and go with GRUB?
2. Can I install GRUB in the EISA primary partition 1 (factory installed FAT16 - 79 MB free) already on disk 1, or do I have to delete it and create a new partition just for GRUB?
3. This link (http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/principles.htm) from post #2 in (https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=183321&highlight) tells why Microsoft's approach isn't the best one. Doesn't OSS use the same approach as that used by Microsoft (the OS selector software is installed in one of the Windows partitions)?
4. Is there a fix for the Full DD CD version not seeing my hard drives?

 

Since you have a Dell notebook, Vista is probably booting "through" one of the other partitions. That may be what's causing the problem.

When you installed OSS, did you do it when you were in Vista or from the CD? I've had the best success with installing OSS from Vista and not from the DD CD.

When you did the restore, did you restore just the Vista partition or did you restore the entire drive (the Disk # checkbox checked)? (Assuming, of course, that your backup image was of the entire drive.)

To answer your questions:
1) I haven't tried GRUB with Vista. Some have had success with it and Vista. GRUB2 is supposed to become the new standard GRUB and probably has better support.
2) I don't see why you couldn't install GRUB in the small FAT partition. You'll most likely lose any "special" booting features the Dell offers (that would also be the case for OSS) if it uses that partition for any of the features.
3) OSS does not use the same approach as Microsoft. As for where you install the OSS files, if you choose the Custom installation, you can put them on any partition (FAT32 or NTFS) on you computer. In fact, if you want the OSS files separate from any OS on your computer then it's best to install the files on a non-OS partition.
4) Right now, OSS seems to recognize Vista much easier from a "clean" install of Vista. That is, Vista was installed on the computer into its partition by booting from a Vista DVD and doing the install. The way most "Brand Name" computers are setup with Vista seems to give OSS problems.

 

MudCrab,

Thanks for your reply. Here are answers to your questions:

1. I installed OSS from within Vista.
2. I reinstalled the MBR and the OS partition only – not the entire drive.
3. The problem may be that I am working with a Dell factory install of Vista, instead of a DVD install. Unfortunately, I have now invested a lot of time installing and configuring all of my Vista applications, as well as restoring email, bookmarks, documents, photos, etc. from various backups. Starting over with a clean DVD install would be a LOT of work at this point.

Unless there is a fairly simple solution to getting OSS to recognize Vista, the best solution may be to use GRUB instead of OSS.

 

If you want to use OSS, then this is what I would try.

You have already deleted the recovery partition and setup your Linux partitions and Vista is currently booting (per your PM).

Reinstall OSS from Vista. If it finds Vista then you should be set to go. If it doesn't, then uninstall or deactivate OSS.

Part of the problems you had may or may not have had anything to do with OSS, depending on exactly how you did the steps. Just changing the partitions can cause Vista not to boot.

I don't know if the Dell Vista DVD has the "Repair" option when you boot it. If it does, and you run into problems with OSS, you could run that to get Vista booting again.

Usually I recommend doing an Entire Disk Image (check the Disk # checkbox) with TI before you try and install a bootmanager (OSS or any other). That way, if it goes wrong, you can restore the entire disk back to the way it was and try again.

If you don't have an entire disk image, you might consider making one before trying OSS again.

 

I am in a little of bind here, I installed Windows Vista Enterprise on a laptop and then ran the OS Selector. Now, I cannot get into Vista.

Disk Director 10.0 Build 2160
OS Selector cannot detect either OS - Vista on C:, XP SP2 on D:

C: (VISTA) NTFS - Used 25GB, Free 50GB
D: (XP)NTFS - Used 86 GB, Free 30GB
Recovery - Userd 5GB, Free 1GB

I can browse the partitions through Disk Director.

But, I am hosed. I tried booting a USB flashdrive and it does. However, the drive mapping is C:
and I cannot see the other partitions on the harddrive. Therefore, I cannot copy the workaround
files like NTLDR, BOOT.INI, NTDETECT.



Through Acronis OS Selector - There is no option to boot to either of the OS.

I go to the option "Deactivate OS Selector"
* It errors - "No operating systems were found on your computer. Acronis OS Selector
deactivation cannot proceed".

I go to the option "OS Detection Wizard"
Choose "Detect OS on partition It shows me C: Primary, Act, D: Primary.

Then it shows "No new operating system is found n the specified partition. Try to change
boot partition or boot sector file name."

 

soflaguy,

Since you can't deactivate or uninstall OSS, you'll have to do boot repairs to fix it.

Were you previously booting using Vista's bootloader? Would it ask if you wanted Vista or the Previous Windows (XP)?

If so, you'll need to boot to the DD cd and set the XP partition as Active (if it's not already). Then boot from the XP cd, go into the recovery console and do a boot repair. Once XP is booting, boot from the Vista DVD and do a repair. It should find the XP setup and setup Vista's bootloader again.

 

Have you tried booting the flashdrive into the "safe" mode of Disk Director to see it you can now see your hard disk partitions? If the "full" mode of the USB flash drive didn't see the other partitions on your disk you will need to run in "safe" mode in order to do what MudCrab is suggesting.

 

MudCrab,

There is joy in Mudville. Many thanks for your help. Here is what I did to get OSS to work:
1. Copied boot.ini, ntldr and ntdetect.com from my other computer (Running XP home) to the Vista machine (as per Post #1 in this thread).
2. Edited boot.ini according to the instructions. Since Vista is on the 3rd partition, the value of “2” was used for the partition.
3. Installed OSS, using custom install to specify that OSS be installed into C:

After the reboot, OSS detected 2 operating systems – an unidentified system and Vista. I suspect that the unidentified system is the “Recovery” partition (the second partition on the hard drive, connected with Drive letter E: in Vista. I have no idea whether it was the 3 additional files or specifying where OSS should be installed that made OSS detect Vista this time, but I’m not about to run the required tests to find out.

The following changes were also made:
1. The unidentified system was hidden to remove it from the boot screen. Does the “delete” option just remove it from the boot list or does it actually delete it from the disk? The wording in the program is scary.
2. Using “Properties”, it could be seen that the drive letters were again screwed up. “C:” was assigned to the Recovery partition and “D:” was assigned to the OS partition.
3. OS was already set to be “Active” (and grayed out).
4. Recovery was listed as the boot partition (grayed out), even though OS was specified. Note – after the system booted, it could be seen that the OSS files had actually been installed in OS("C:") as specified, not in Recovery as the display indicated. OSS has a real problem with drive letters.
5. Under the “Folders” option, D:\Windows, D:\Program Files and D:\Users were selected by the system. I added “C:” versions of each of these files just to be sure. As above, does the “Delete” option just remove the folder from the list, or does it actually delete the folder from the disk, as OSS seems to indicate? I wasn’t going to take the chance, so I left both the “C:” and “D:” versions in the list.

OSS thinks that my Vista is an XP system, so the presence of the 3 extra files obviously did something.

Even though the drive letters were incorrect in OSS, they are correct in Vista.

At this time, I only have one operating system installed, but it is booting through OSS because the “Loading Acronis….” Screen pops up and the boot process is extended by about 5 seconds. Can I assume that my system is now in a stable mode, and that adding Linux to OSS (after I install it with GRUB in the root Linux partition) will be a snap?

What is the difference between TI making a backup of the complete disk and just “C:”? Is the difference that this also causes the partition table to be copied? I don’t mind doing a complete backup on a relatively empty system, but once things start to fill up, it won’t be acceptable. Is the only workaround to use the Vista disk to fix things up? Is TI corrupting the partition tables? Is there any chance that these bugs in TI and DD will be fixed without the need to buy an upgrade.

Thanks again for your efforts.

 

This is the "old cheat" to get OSS to find Vista. As you found, it detects it as XP when you do this.

I would guess it was the 3 files.

It just removes it from the boot menu.

OSS can get the drive letters wrong (just like DD and TI do). "Usually" it will get the main Windows drive as C: if it was installed that way.

These folders have more to do with using the "Copy OS" feature (that only works with XP and FAT32 partitions) than anything else. Removing the folders from the list should not delete them from the hard disk.

This is normal when OSS gets screwed up.

If you can successfully boot into Windows (Vista) then you should have a stable system. If you want OSS to detect Vista as Vista then you'd have to deactivate OSS, boot to a Vista DVD and do a boot repair and then reactivate OSS.

The difference is because TI currently has a "bug" that will cause a Vista partition restore to be repaired if it was originally setup by Vista. (If the partition was created with DD or XP, then this doesn't happen.) When you restore an entire disk image, TI restores the Vista partition back into its original place and Vista boots without needing repaired.

No. TI saves the MBR and Track 0 even with single partition backups.

I recommend creating a "base" image that contains the entire disk with your partitions created and the OS's installed. From that point you can just backup partitions as needed. Then you have a "base" entire disk image to fall back on if needed later.

Yes. Once the repair is done, further backups and restores will not require a repair.

That depends on your definition of corrupt. If you restore the partition back to the same "slot" then no change is made to the partition table. If you restore to a different "slot" then TI reorders the partition table. The "bug", however, is not releated to this. It happens because TI recreates the Vista partition using the XP standard (not the new Vista standard) and then Vista can't find its boot files and a repair is required to fix it.

We hope so. Acronis has already supposedly fixed the Vista "bug" but has not release a new build yet. DD gets a lot less attention so it's anybody's guess. OSS still needs a lot of bugs fixed (Vista "support" just added more).

 

I just thought I'd add my experience with getting OSS to detect Vista. Acronis support recommended that I reinstall vista, but there is no way I'm going to do that as it would take me a month to reinstall all the software I use and get everything running properly again.

Anyway, the mistake I made was to install OSS to my vista partition. Once I had done that, no matter what I did, vista would not be detected (this is vista X64 if it matters). So I would install OSS, do the required reboot, find I couldn't get back into vista and then have to do a repair from the vista DVD.

Eventually, I decided to try and install OSS on it's own partition (I had run out of other ides), so I used DD to clear off a small partition at the start of the C drive, formatted it as FAT32 and then reinstalled OSS to this partition.

Having done that, Vista is now detected properly. So it seems, at least with the X64 version of vista, that installing OSS on the same partition screws up the OS detection.

 

macooper,

Thanks for posting what worked for you. Getting OSS to work with Vista seems to be a hit or miss procedure, especially on systems where Vista wasn't installed "clean" from a standard Vista DVD.

I have also found OSS to be more "stable" and less intrusive when installed on its own partition (or on a data partition) so it's not "attached" to any particular Windows OS partition. This also allows you to restore those partitions (with TI, for example) without screwing up OSS by restoring old OSS files.

 

I am using the 10.2.117 Acronis selector with the same problem of detecting Vista.
I followed Nulget instructions on post #1 and #2 by pasting the two files he mentions and making the boot.ini with notepad. It worked like a charm.
When I installed vista and xp I made sure the partitions had easy to recognize names, and used Acronis Director Suite to identify the partition number. Right click your partitions and select properties, and signature, it will show on xp OS D(0)p(1) for example and p(1) stands for partition.
I might be wrong but it worked great for me .

 

I almost forgot. Nuljet, Thank you.

 

Hello,

Am I understanding that right?

You can install for each linux derivant a grub into the corresponding boot/root? So let's say, you have 3 times a MS Version in the primary partitions and x-times linux in extended/logical partitions. Each with its own Grub.

All you have to do is install Acronis OSS somewhere (may be the 4th primary partition) and let it start the other GRUB's...?

 

That is correct. You can install GRUB to your Linux partitions instead of the MBR. Each Linux partition is then isolated with its own GRUB and OSS just loads directly to the partition.

I have three Linux installs on my computer setup this way (along with 2 XP's and Vista). When I select the OSS menu entry for Ubuntu, OSS boots to Ubuntu's GRUB menu, from there I select which option I want or wait for the timeout to boot the default.

 

Except that the devil is sometimes in the details. A partition table only has room for 4 entries. So if you use one of the entries for an extended partition then you cannot also have 4 primary partitions; only 3.

So either:
4 primary partitions

or:
3 primary partitions and an unlimited number of logical partitions.

 

thank you!

I will try that at the weekend.