OS Selector will not activate
I had Vista Business OS installed on an SSD (Disk 1) and wished to install an additional OS XP Professional on an HDD (Disk 0). Acronis Disk Director 11 was installed and the OS Selector activated. This loaded and operated correctly at bootup.
I created a new volume on the HDD XP (K:) for the new OS.
Following the instructions in the Disk Director 11 User Guide “Install another Windows OS on a different disk” I carried the following steps:
1. CD item was not shown in the Operating Systems area of the OS Selector main menu (SATA CD-ROM driver issue?) so the “Boot from floppy” item was used.
2. Right-clicked that item and selected Operating System -> Disks and set target disk to the HDD as first.
3. I didn’t select “Yes – protect folders” from Tools -> Options -> General Options as the instructions in the User Guide didn’t state this.
4. Inserted a Dell Reinstallation CD Windows XP Professional SP3 and rebooted selecting the CD-ROM as the boot device in BIOS prior to startup.
5. The XP disk booted and followed the instructions to install XP on the HDD volume K:
6. XP duly installed and was setup.
7. When rebooted with the SSD set as the first boot device the system hung with the message “Starting Acronis Loader…”.
8. XP could be booted by selecting the HDD as the boot device but Vista would not boot as the OS Loader would not start.
9. I tried to boot from bootable media created with Disk Director 11 (full) and ATHI & Disk Director but both also hung with the “Starting Acronis Loader…” message.
10. Not being able to access Disk Director or OS Selector I used the Dell Vista Business 32 bit reinstallation DVD to “Repair” the Vista OS.
11. This did not work immediately but after a couple of tries eventually Vista booted from the SSD without the OS Selector loading at bootup.
12. OS Selector can be started from Vista and the main menu shows:
Windows Vista (English)
Boot from floppy (A); and
Windows Vista ™ Business (recovered) (English).
13. Trying to boot from OS Selector gives the message “Acronis OS Selector failed to activate”.
14. Tools -> Activate OS Selector gives the message "Acronis OS Selector failed to activate"
How can I get OS Selector to start at bootup with the option to boot to XP?
How can I avoid this problem when I come to install Windows 7 as an additional OS on a new volume on the SSD?
I finally have resolution on this problem but sadly not with OSS.
After discussion with an Acronis Support Engineer (Case ID 01924223) I was told I couldn't use OSS to install additional OS's as it does not support SATA drives and the CD/DVD-ROM option would not appear in the OSS window.
I was going to try installing Windows 7 manually and then use OSS for the boot menu but when I deactivated it I couldn't get it to reactivate.
So I installed W7 and then used EasyBCD to fix the boot menu. It even found the XP install that OSS couldn't discover.
I now have a Windows boot menu with Windows 7; Vista and XP and all boot successfully.
One issue with the W7 install on the SDD was that the SDD had to be changed to the first SATA port before it would install but then it was plain sailing.
I think Acronis need to fix the SATA driver issue if that are going to keep selling Disk Director with OSS as there must be others affected by this.
I had the same problem, OSS would not activate so I used EasyBCD with no problems.
Come on Acronis, if a free program can do it why not OSS?
Hi, I had the same problem, but I prefer to have a solution given by Acronis
Yes, I would have preferred Acronis to have fixed OSS but was told by their support engineer that this would only get done with a reissue of Disk Director and that wasn't planned any time soon.
I see it is still version 11 so presumably it is still an issue.
I've been using the triple boot set up using EasyBCD for about 10 months now with no problems.