What is the last Version of OSS?

That's not even the same version. 10 (2,161) is from DD/OSS 10.

OSS 11 is included with DD 11. The latest build is 2121. OSS should show 11 (build 3,034).

Thank you for the answer!

No matter what I do, the old version is comming up on reboot.

I verified that I use the right installer now, has the version you mentioned.
That gives me 3 folders for Repair/Update, I installed on all of the 3.

Still the old version.

Ok, there is a link in the root of the disk containing the BOOTWIZ folder,
pointing to the wrong installation... AHHH

Deinstalled DD, installed again on the partition with the used BOOTWIZ folder.
Link is now correct, but still 10.0 (build 2.161)...

Any idea how to fix this without loosing data...? Where is the missing link?

And again, thanks for you website! Without that info OSS would be dead for me...

Ok, did a new setup from CD, left me with a blinking cursor after the loading message.
After activation from CD, I am finaly booting with OSS 11.0 bulid 3.034

My Win 7 installations are still not bootable (something like: This type of filesystem is not supported)
but I guess after cleaning up the BOOTWIZ.oss file this should work again.

At least all XP installations are still bootable...

The thing is, first I burned a CD from the Acronis provided .iso -> No OSS on there.
Then I burned a CD from ADD 11 directly -> would not boot
Created an .iso from ADD 11 and burned with Nero -> did not verify ok
An .iso from ATI 13 burned with Nero worked finally...

The whole thing could have been fixed easily if OSS would be included in the downloadable .iso

Was OSS not included on the DD ISO you can download from your Acronis account? I haven't checked recently, but it was included when I last checked.

I would check that right now, but after I repaired the first Win 7 installation and booted it, OSS deinstalled itself at the next boot.
Reinstalled (with manual entry of the super serial number) and now everything seems to be mixed up again.
OSS generated new IDs and has several active and active/hidden entrys in the partitions sections.
I just hope to have a few month till the automatic kicks in again...

You might need to clear out or delete all the BOOTWIZ folders. It's possible there are several that include the files and it may be causing problems. Check every partition (enable viewing of hidden & system files). Then reinstall OSS.

I don't think I would bother with "fixing" any BOOTWIZ.OSS file problems until after OSS is working since it changes ID's every time.

OSS is working so far, can boot at least one XP and maybe one Win7.
Do a spreadsheet of all non changing data right now.
That's quite a mess with 4 internal and 3 external disks ;-)

Hope to get things back to normal if I have control over the
partitions sections again.

Thank you very much for your answers!

Is it possible that OSS has a hard time with my partitions since I cloned my installations?
All the serial values of my bootable partitions are the same for one OS.
And the crc values for partitions seem to have another meaning than the name implies, right?

It may have a problem if it sees the same saved ID value. You could trying deleting the BOOTWIZ folder on the copied partition(s) before you run OSS (or reboot to OSS). I think the CRC value is just there so OSS can tell if the partition has moved/changed, etc. I don't know exactly what it's checking.

I cleaned everything and as I feared -> nothing works anymore.
Ok, I have 4 disks, 3x Win 7 and 3x XP (each kind on a seperate disk).
But uninstalling OSS left just dead bodys behind, no boot.ini, wrong boot.ini, etc.
I fixed the boot.ini files before installing OSS.

The default detection is creepy again (active and hidden set both, without any chance to change that in the GUI).
Ok, with some knowledge about the bootwiz.oss file I can fix that, but as soon as something changes,
the whole thing starts again...

Any idea what could lead OSS to mark a partition active AND hidden?

It usually only does that if the partition is hidden at the time it is auto-detected (like when you install OSS). To avoid this bug, it's generally best to boot to the DD CD and make sure every OS partition is unhidden before installing OSS.

You can fix the problem manually by editing the BOOTWIZ.OSS file. The "hidden" option needs to be removed from the Active partition. There's more info in this thread on the problem.

Thank you for the link, tells a story besides the technical stuff...

After lots of hassle, I am nearly back to normal again. 2x XP and 2x Win 7 running.
Third Win7 will be recreated from an image, booted with a black screen, mouse working but no reaction whatsoever.

Thank you for your answers MudCrab. Here one last question:

The XP in the second partition reports under Windows the first partition as active.
DD thinks it's the second, bootwiz.oss has a multi pointing to partition 2, boot.ini also.
Odd behavior of the Windows Disk Management or something to worry about?

It's possible that OSS is booting the second partition from the first (with a modified boot.ini file). It's also possible that OSS just set the wrong partition Active and it's got the booting partition set right. I would need to see the BOOTWIZ.OSS file to see if something looks wrong.

Ok, mystery solved. Windows seems to order the partitions in Disk Management like random.
I had the first partition in the list active and then came my C:, which was the second of the first HD.
However, the active partition I was referring to was from another disk and (System) seems to include (Active) there.
So that should be ok.

Anyways, I still get sporadic "No configuration file present" and can think of no way that I could have angered
the inner mechanics of booting or OSS. It is fixed by booting from CD and activating OSS again.

I deleted the system_root_identifier stuff and set write_boot to "0" for the generated Win 7 entries.
Since they are clones, they should not have that, right?

I attached my bootwiz.oss (renamed to txt).

Could you have a look at the XP entries (starting line 66 an 85) and the checkfiles section (line 117)?
Could I get rid of the checkfiles and change write_boot to "0" for XP as well?

BTW: Just burned the .iso from Acronis again, the OSS Stuff was on there, my fault!

Turn off defrag for the partition with OSS installed on it or exclude the OSS files/folder (BOOTWIZ) from being defragged. That might help with the error.

As long as OSS is still booting the Windows 7 entries it shouldn't matter about the "identifier" value. It's usually not necessary to write the boot sector. For manual entries, neither of these options are used and it seems to work fine that way.

I would leave the checkfiles section as it is. OSS will most likely just add them back in again. Also, with OSS it's best to make as few changes as possible. It doesn't take much to throw it into "reset" mode.

Thank you for taking time to look at my file!

Turned defrag off and had no problems for two days. Let's hope it stays that way.

Thanks for all the info!!! Much appreciated!

So far everything is back to normal.

Thank you MudCrab!!!!

You're welcome.