reinstall TI9 and DD10 on XP

Hi,

I have TI9 and DD10 installed on my first partition. I need to reinstall the XP on the first partition from the XP CD and not from a previous image file that I created with TI9. I will need to reinstall TI9 and DD10 on to the first partition. My concern is that I may damage functionality of the other primary partitions that I have on my first hard drive when I do this. I am also concerned that I may be damaging the functionality of the part of the hard drive that stores the data that becomes accessible when I use the Rescue Media Boot CD.

If any one has any advice I would certainly appreciate it.

Thanks.

 

Do you have a current backup image of the drive?

Reinstalling XP into its partition shouldn't cause a problem with any of the other partitions. However, it's always safest to have a backup just in case something goes wrong. This backup should be saved to a different hard drive (a USB drive or another internal drive, for example).

Do you have the TI SZ installed? If so, is that what you mean by the part of the hard drive that stores the data that becomes accessible when I use the Rescue Media Boot CD? As long as you reinstall XP to the same partition that it currently uses, the SZ should be fine as should all the other partitions.

 

frustrated2today:

You should be able to reinstall XP to your first partition, then reinstall DD10 and TI9 without issue, unless one of the following situations apply:

1. You are multibooting and have other Microsoft operating systems installed (XP and/or Vista) and your current installation is using the first partition for the boot files.
2. You have activated the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (ASRM) from TI. If you have, the installation of XP will write a new Master Boot Record that will disable the ASRM. You will have to re-activate it if this is the case.
3. You are using OS Selector. If so, you should disable it first, then install XP, then DD10, and then reinstall OS Selector.

If none of these apply then you should be able to proceed without issue. It is always good practice, since you have TI, to back up your entire disk first just in case something goes wrong.

The Rescue Media Boot CD contains its own operating system and runs independently of what's on your current hard disk. If you are referring to the Acronis Secure Zone, then as long as you don't modify the Secure Zone's partition then it will remain in place. Installing XP won't affect it.

 

Yes I do and that is what I mean. I didn't know the SZ was the part of the hard drive the boot cd was activating. I should also add that on the other three partitions I have XP installed. And thank you for your time and attention. What part of California do you live in?

 

I plan on leaving the SZ alone and I also plan on leaving the remaining partition intact.

thank you for your prompt reply and all the way from the east coast.

 

Well I guess I used the quote tool wrong. I think that the two of you will be able to distinguish my response to your comments in the box. thanks for your patience.

 

Well that complicates things a little. I will turn this over to Paul (MudCrab), the resident expert on OS Selector.

 

frustrated2today,

Can you please post a copy of the OSS BOOTWIZ.OSS file (instructions can be found here)?

Also, when you find the BOOTWIZ.OSS file, can you please let me know which partition it's on? It's usually on the first Primary partition and that would be the one you want to reinstall. That may complicate things so we need to know where OSS is installed before you begin.

 

I am having some difficulty locating the bootwiz.oss file. When I open the Bootwiz folder of the C/ on my first partition I can not locate bootwiz.oss. I do however have a file that is called bootwiz text document. I am puzzled because I have five bootwiz titles with no ".oss" behind them or anything.

I wish I could send you an image of the entire contents of the folder Bootwiz. I tried using Snagit but it would not copy on to this page.

Bellow is the Bootwiz text document file that I found.

new problem, I could only send the first half. will send second half in a moment.

Second new problem I am not allowed to send all this info. will reread instructions and hoping you may elucidate.

 

Make sure you've enabled viewing of Hidden and System Files & Folders. If OSS is installed, the BOOTWIZ.OSS file will be on one of the partitions in the \BOOTWIZ folder.

 

Ok I think that if you look under attachments you will see an image of what I am looking at in C

 

Well I guess I can't get that to work either. The hidden file radio button is checked. An indication that this is working is that some of the files are faded in color.

 

OK, I also found that I had to check show hidden file extensions. but the .oss files that I do have are identified as "Type", "office search". And I can not open them.

 

Make sure that both of the necessary options are set (see figure 1.5 or 2.5 here).

 

There should only be one BOOTWIZ.OSS file. Make a copy of the file and rename it to BOOTWIZ.TXT. Then you can view it in Notepad and also attach it to a post.

 

Ok I have uploaded the file bootwiz.txt. under manage attachments. When I click on the paper clip on the "reply to thread" screen I see that it is there but I don' t know if you will see it as the image I tried to send failed. so here goes.

thanks for your patience.

 

Can you please let me know on which partition the BOOTWIZ.OSS file was located?

 

Sorry, I thought that I indicated that it is the first partition,on Dick 0.

I will have to leave for an appointment soon. I will be back in a couple of hours. I hope that you may have the time to further assist me. If not perhaps you may look up this thread latter.

thank you.

 

Lets try Disk 0.

 

I have to leave shortly and probably won't be able to check back until later tonight.

Since you have a backup of the hard drive, you should be okay to proceed. Hopefully, your backup is an Entire Disk Image backup (Disk # box checked) and you have previously done restores so you know it works. If you don't have a current Entire Disk Image backup of the drive and you have the room, you might want to consider creating one.

OSS is installed into the partition to which you want to reinstall XP. This partition is also the booting partition (Active partition) for the other two XP installations. According to the BOOTWIZ.OSS file, the other two partitions also contain the XP booting files so I'm assuming you installed them through OSS and not manually as isolated installs.

OSS will most likely need to be reinstalled (or, at least, reactivated) after doing the XP installation. However, it may detect that you're installing to the OSS partition and "save" the OSS files. In any case, if OSS doesn't detect the other two XP installations automatically after it's reinstalled, they can be added manually.

This is the main reason I recommend installing OSS to a non-OS partition. That way, you can change the OS partitions without affecting the OSS files. If you do a Custom installation of OSS, you can select any FAT32 or NTFS partition for the OSS files.

 

I am sorry to be getting back to you so late. When I returned home my dsl connection was not working and I had to call AT&T to start that back up again, and a series of other mishaps unrelated to my computer.

I do not have a back up of the entire hard drive. I backed up the partitions separately for the first hard drive. I do not have room on my SZ for the entire first hard drive.

If the OSS does not detect the other two XP installations how do I do that manually? Would I do that off the boot disc?

If I install the OSS on a partition does that partition need to be on my first hard drive or may I install it on the second internal hard drive. Would you also make a suggestion as to how large that logical partition should be? Would it be useful to install any thing else on that partition?

When I installed DDS I thought it installed all of DDS and that I didn’t have the option to install separate parts of it on other partitions.

Are there any other suggestions?

Thank you for your time and help.

 

Backups in the SZ are better than nothing. However, it would be nice to have them on an external drive too.

Usually, it just takes adding them to the BOOTWIZ.OSS file. I should be able to do it for you if it's needed. As long as one Windows will boot and you can get access to the BOOTWIZ.OSS file, it's normally not a problem and can be done from Windows.

The partition can be on any internal hard drive. It can be a Primary or Logical partition of 50MB or larger.

You can certainly use an existing partition. If you have a data partition, for example, you can use that. I use a 10GB FAT32 partition I share between Windows and Linux. The OSS files take up very little space.

The option of where to install the OSS files is not shown when installing DD. It is only shown when you install OSS using the Custom option. Usually, you'd install DD and then install OSS. They are two separate installations.

 

Thank you for your detailed response.

I am beginning to think that what I will do is reinstall the OS on my first partition and continue to reinstall the OS on my other partitions. I will also create a logical partition to store OSS on the first hard drive.

My original problem occurred when I installed software that I latter needed to remove and the OS became buggy after I removed the software. I tried to resolve the problems using Norton WinDoctor but the problems remained. When my subscription runs out I want to use some other antivirus rather than Norton since it seems to really slow the OS.

My thought in mentioning all of this is that I am considering installing the OS and all the drives. Then TI9, DDS on the first partition and OSS on an other partition. Then making an image of this installation. Afterwards installing the software that I will use. Then making an image of that partition. This way I will have an image file of the OS without any software incase I have future problems with the software, for example when I want to install some other antivirus other than Norton and I will have a image of the OS with Norton incase something gets weird as to the functionality.

Is there any way that I could copy the image of the new installation on the first partition to the other three partitions or would it be better to install each partition through OSS?

Thank you for your time and effort.

 

There are several ways to do this. You can use TI to image the first partition and then restore it to the other two. You could also use DD to copy the first partition to the other two.

What build of TI 9 are you using? Build 3,854 will scramble the partition table if you use it for this. That will make figuring out the correct values for the boot.ini files a little harder. Builds 3,677 and earlier don't do this.

If you use DD to copy the partition, I think it has to copy to unallocated space. For example, you would have to get the first partition setup how you want and then copy it to unallocated space and then copy it again and finally create the OSS Logical partition = [XP1][XP2][XP3][OSS]. You could also create the OSS partition right after the XP1 partition and then copy XP1 to the other two = [XP1][OSS][XP2][XP3].

In either case, you'd need to edit the boot.ini files to be correct for the partition they're on as neither DD nor TI 9 will modify them. TI 10 and 11 will make these corrections during a restore.

 

thank you again for your time.

From your comments it looks like the simplest ways of doing this is to purchase and download a copy of TI11.

It appears that there has only been one update since I downloaded DDS which is update 2160.