new user question

hello,

at work we received a new task, but we never did something similar before: we have 3 PC (apart from one software configuration exactly the same). we already imaged them with acronis and now we would like to prepare a spare PC with 3 partitions containing one image each and start with the OS Selector.

The images separate work fine but with the OSS I receive errors 'fail to read from sector xx on hard disk xx'

Unfortunately nobody is experienced with multi boots. Is there a proper manual somewhere?


Regards
Cy

 

cyberman,

You have a lot of reading to do.

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htm

 

Be aware that if you are using OS selector from acronis that complete separation of partitions/ hard disks may not be a reality with some systems (at least not without complicated workarounds). OS selector can be said to have schizophrenia on some set-ups.

Also be aware that the link provided above is only a guide that makes no pretense at being comprehensive and is only a down and dirty theoretical overview (and thus often slightly inaccurate with information dealing with microsoft set ups).

I think that your answer lies within the dd forum here. Check out posts with a system as close to yours and see if the solutions can be adapted to your situation.

Perhaps the quickest way to get a solution is to provide as much info about your set up so that members can access and recommend possible solutions.

An acronis ticket may also be in order.

 

cheers folks! I try to figure out how to solve that problem. It doesn't look to be that easy!

 

cyberman,

Have you tried a different hard drive? Perhaps OSS is working correctly and there is a bad sector on the drive. Running chkdsk /r may or may not find it if it's in the MBR or Track 0 area.

If you have access to the drive's testing programs you could run those and check the drive. You can usually download the testing programs from the manufacturer's website.

OSS can handle isolated installs of OS's. They just have to be setup correctly.

What OS's are your trying to install/restore? If it's Windows you may run into activation/licensing problems depending on your version(s).

You should be able to setup three primary partitions (one for each OS) and a small FAT32 or NTFS partition to install OSS into. Then restore your TI images. Then boot from the DD cd and install OSS, using the custom option and installing it to the small partition. That way the OSS files will be separate from the OS's and restoring any of the OS partitions won't change the OSS files.

Reboot into OSS and hopefully it detects all three OS partitions and puts them in the menu. Edit the properties for each menu entry to hide the other OS partitions and you should be set.

If you get "Unknown" entries or grayed out "hide" boxes, those can usually be fixed without too much trouble by editing the bootwiz.oss file.