Windows 7 Partition will no longer boot after updating version 11

If you post a copy of the BOOTWIZ.OSS file, I'll take a look at it.

Thanks MudCrab! - I really appreciate you taking time out of your weekend here.
As attached.

Do you know if the Games partition booted from itself or if it also booted from the Recovery partition? Can you look on the Games partition and see if it has a bootmgr file and boot folder in the root folder (you may have to enable viewing of hidden and system files if using Windows Explorer for this).

Actually it appears right now I'm booting off Local Volume (hidden), the first partition. That's where BOOTWIZ.OSS came from. Sorry I was misleading earlier. I'm not sure how it was set up before.

I looked at the BOOTWIZ folder on the OS GAMES partition, the only file in there is content.oss

Thanks!

> Can you look on the Games partition and see if it has a bootmgr file and boot folder in the root folder

Oh and no it doesn't have this, just the BOOTWIZ folder.

The RECOVERY partition has this though (strangely not the first hidden volume partition where I got the bootwiz.oss, and that's the only partition I can find a bootwiz.oss file).

Thanks :)

I'm just trying to determine if the Games partition was booting from its own partition or if it was booting from a different partition (possibly it also boots from the Recovery partition). The BOOTWIZ.OSS file is only showing the BCD from the Recovery partition.

Do you remember how you set up the dual-boot system? How they were installed?

I have two Windows 7 partitions, which I could boot from the Acronis OS selector. I can't really remember much but either I installed each Windows 7 from scratch or I might have Ghosted over a copy from one partition to another. Is there any more info specifically I can supply?

I'm wondering if I could I try some sample BOOTWIZ.OSS files that points to the Games partition and see what happens? I have a copy of on Disk Director on disk so I'm guessing if the worst can happen I can uninstall/reinstall Disk Director and get access to the sound studio partition again? At the very least I could attempt to get the OS GAMES partition to boot up, if it's missing the appropriate boot information could maybe recover this later?

It seems that uninstalling Acronis OS Selector earlier really has screwed things up! :)

UPDATE -

So I went into Norton Ghost backups, unfortunately the GAMES partition backup didn't seem to want to mount (after several attempts it seems Ghost didn't back it up correctly - arghhh! :), however I went into a backup of the SOUND STUDIO partition and managed to find a bootwiz.oss file there for some reason.

Apologies if this is getting complicated!

Thanks

Alex

Can you confirm that the Games partition used to be Logical? This is what the older BOOTWIZ.OSS file shows. If so, how did you convert it to a Primary?

Do you have a Windows 7 installation DVD or System Repair Disc?

What are your intentions regarding using the space on the drive? Currently you have a lot of wasted space (763GB).

Well spotted - Yes I can confirm it used to be logical. I was trying to see if I could get the OS Manager to recognize it (i.e. the current problem) so I converted it to primary via Acronis Disk Director to see if that made a difference.

Yes I have a Win7 64 bit install DVD, surely I would need to be able to boot into OS GAMES first to run it? Wondering if I can actually repair from running Windows 7 on the SOUND STUDIO partition? It's exactly the same operating system, on the same patches and service packs.

Currently the wasted disk space is unallocated by design (reserved for future use, I know this may seem crazy), I appreciate I can only have 4 primary partitions.

Cheers :)

Alex

As long as you're aware of the issues it's not a problem for me.

At this point, I think it would be easier to just try and fix the Games partition's booting since its current state won't allow it to just be added to the OSS menu. Try this:

1. Boot to the DD CD and start DD.
2. Set the Games partition Active.
3. Hide all of the other partitions on that drive.
4. Make sure to apply/commit the changes.
5. Remove the DD CD and insert the Windows 7 DVD.
6. Reboot/reset the computer and boot it from the Windows DVD. Press a key when prompted to boot the DVD.
7. Select the language (if prompted) and then select the option to Repair your computer.
8. It should run a Startup Repair or detect something wrong. If it does, let it do the fix and restart. If it doesn't, select the Windows installation (should be the Games partition), the Use recovery tools... option, and click Next. From there, click the Startup Repair link.
9. After it applies a repair it will need to restart. Let it do this and make sure to boot back to the DVD. Repeat the steps until no startup errors are detected (it usually takes two or three times since it doesn't fix everything in one pass).

Once the repairs are done you should be able to boot into the Games partition. From there you can reactivate OSS if necessary. If OSS doesn't pick up the Games installation and add it to the menu, run the OS Detection Wizard, select Detect OS on partition, select the Games partition and click the Bootable button, then click Next. I think it should find it with the wizard. If not, send me a new copy of the BOOTWIZ.OSS file and I'll add it manually.

Hi there

Well I have good news and bad news.

First the good news, after following your instructions to letter I managed to boot into the Games partition. I started up Disk director to inspect the partitions and all seems well (and Disk Director is running on the latest version).

So I rebooted and this is where things went wrong again!

I got a number of errors similar to this, I had no choice but to click OK:

ACRONIS OS SELECTOR NEEDS TO MOVE BOOTWIZ\80235c19\Programs Files (x86) to new location \Program Files(x86).0
Then it rebooted, and rebooted and rebooted - forever.
I tried an OS Selector repair without much success so I uninstalled and reinstalled the OS Selector.

I managed to boot into the GAMES partition, I restarted and I still could boot into the GAMES partition. Success!

Then I tried booting into the SOUND STUDIO partition and Windows came up with:

Runtime Error! - Terminated in an unusual way.
Program C:\Windows\System32\nvvsvc.exe
It then stated user profile service failed. The login user profile cannot be loaded. So I can't login to SOUND STUDIO any more.
NB I identified the icons in OS Selector as "Weird Screwup" so you can see it in bootwiz.oss

I think OS Select effectively sh*t on my disk properly this time, or maybe it  was Windows :(
Also note there are a number of invalid entries in the OS Selector, I attach the bootwiz.oss file.
Are you able to clean some of this up? Wondering how it compares with the first file.

Really - thankyou very much for this again...

I've attached a modified BOOTWIZ.OSS file. You can try it and see if it works any better. However, before trying to boot into the Studio partition can you post the following?

Boot into the Games partition and post a screenshot of what Disk Management shows.

Then start DD and click the Disk layout link in the top right and select the Windows 7 on the Studio partition. Post a screenshot of what DD shows for the drives (the whole DD window). If DD isn't installed in Games you could boot to the DD CD and do it from there (you'd need to take a photo of the screen).

Sure thing. I'll hold off swapping out bootwiz.oss until you've seen this.
Screenshots are made from the Games partition.

Thankyou.

p.s. Please note I've been experimenting with hiding partitions to see if this works (since last post).
i.e. Just showing the current booted operating system and the other data drive partition.... no luck.

OK I could not resist. I swapped out bootwiz.oss.
After rebooting it appears that OS selector immediately rebuilt the file (as attached).

No real change, Games works, OS Sound Studio has the same issues. There's another icon for the utility partition as normal (first selection).
The other "recovered" icons boot to a windows screen that freezes.

Cheers....

Do you use the Recovery partition?

I think part of the problem here is that the systems are still too tangled up. Games used to be Logical and booted from the Studio partition. The Studio partition boots from the Recovery partition. Several BCD files have multiple entries. And so on.

I would like to get OSS out of the way and get each Windows booting properly. I would also like to remove/delete the booting files on the Recovery partition and those on the Studio partition and then repair the Studio partition. OSS can be reinstalled after they are fixed. Is this something you're okay with?

Well the recovery partition is nice to have. I've Ghosted the (Dell) Recovery partition. It's not the end of the world if it gets lost. I could put it back on right? I may also have a Ghost backup of the Studio partition (to be confirmed) which I may be able to restore, but I'd like to recover first as there is no guartantee.

So specifically what would you like me to do?

Thanks for sticking with this..

Alex

The Recovery partition can stay on the drive. Basically, I would like to get the Studio partition booting from itself. The way the system is currently configured is not one well suited for multi-booting -- it breaks too easy and it's too complicated.

Do you have another computer to access the internet if this one goes down?

1. Uninstall OSS and select Games as the default OS. The computer should boot directly into Games after this is done.
2. Use DD to unhide the Studio partition. You can do with using DD in Windows or from the DD CD.
3. Delete the the \bootmgr file and the \boot folder from the Studio partition. You should be able to do this while booted into Games (assign Studio a drive letter, if necessary).
4. Boot to the DD CD. Set the Studio partition Active and hide all the other partitions.
5. Boot to the Windows 7 DVD and do the boot repair just like you did in Steps 6-9 of Post 10.
6. Remove the Windows 7 DVD and reboot the computer. The Studio partition should boot.

If the Studio partition doesn't boot up properly, you can switch back to Games by doing the following:

1. Boot to the DD CD.
2. Unhide the Games partition.
3. Set the Games partition Active.
4. Apply the changes, remove the DD CD, and reboot.

After following step 1 and restarting the Games partition booted Windows and had the same problem as with the Studio partition, i.e. User Profile Server not running/missing. I could only restart not log in :(

So both partitions are now screwed unfortunately....
Wish I followed step 3 first!!!

In process now of attempting recovery with Windows 7 DVD hiding all partitions etc.

Actually I'm gonna drop into the command shell first and rename those boot directories to *.old, then repair.

Also wondering about BOOTSECT.BAK files. Leaving them there for now..

Cheers...

Do you remember what the drive letter was that was assigned to the Studio partition when you were booted into Studio (back when it was working okay)? Normally, it's C:.

Do you know if OSS was protecting any of the system folders? It may have moved the files into the BOOTWIZ folder. That might be causing the problem you're having.

Thanks for the reponse.

The Win OS on each partition was on drive C. Definately C I wouldn't have it at any other letter.

I had no idea that OSS "protected" files...!

WHAT I DID

So I uninstalled OSS, whereby I could not boot into any Windows partitions (as explained earlier).
Hid all partitions except OS Sound Studio (active)
Booted to Win7 CD
Dropped to command prompt and deleted BOOT folders, rebooted.
Booted to Win7 CD multiple times, Windows did repairs.

Left Windows repair asking me to Select OS to recover it showed:
Windows 7 Ultimate (Recovered) Location (C) OS Games
Windows 7 Ultimate (Recovered) Location (unknown) OS Sound Studio
Windows 7 Ultimate (Recovered) Location (unknown) OS Sound Studio

Rather than select an OS I rebooted to the DD disk

Hid all partitions except OS Games (active)
Booted to Win7 CD
Dropped to command prompt and deleted BOOT folders, rebooted.
Booted to Win7 CD multiple times, Windows did repairs.

Left Windows repair asking me to Select OS to recover it showed:
Windows 7 Ultimate (Recovered) Location (C) OS Games
Windows 7 Ultimate (Recovered) Location (unknown) OS Sound Studio
Windows 7 Ultimate (Recovered) Location (unknown) OS Sound Studio

Then I tried to boot and it stated the Bootmgr was missing.

So I booted to Sound Studio instead (unhid sound studio partition and made Sound Studio partition visible).

Again Bootmgr missing.

I've now left it whereby SOUND STUDIO is the only visible active partition. Have not installed OSS. Can't boot anywhere.

Pausing now... Wondering if something needs to be done before OSS gets installed.

So I'm wondering, should I boot in the other non Windows partitions using recovery disk and remove the boot folders as well?

And why does Windows boot disk show these entries (normal?):

Windows 7 Ultimate (Recovered) Location (unknown)

... and did OSS move across essential files way back!

:)

Cheers...

Studio is currently Active and not hidden. Recovery and Games are hidden. Is this correct?

Are you using a Windows 7 installation DVD for the repairs or are you using a System Repair Disc?

If you boot the the Windows 7 DVD, select to Repair, and then start the Command Prompt, is C: the Studio partition? It should be. Change to the BOOTWIZ folder (cd \bootwiz) and run dir to see the contents. What's there? Is there a folder consisting of eight letters/numbers that contains a Users folder?

If you run the Startup Repair from the menu does it find anything wrong? The repair should copy over bootmgr if it really is missing.

The partition configuration is as you describe.
Yes it's the Windows 7 DVD which came with the PC at all times.

Yes it's the studio partition. If I hide this and unhide the GAMES partition and make this active C drive will beGames partition.

So back to the OS STUDIO partition..... (with all other partitions hidden)....

If I use the Windows boot disk, I get these options to select:
Windows 7 Ultimate (Recovered). Location = (Unknown) OS Games
Windows 7 Ultimate (Recovered). Location = (C:) OS Sound Studio
Windows 7 Ultimate (Recovered). Location = (C:) OS Sound Studio

Why twice? Any idea?

So I select the SECOND option and drop to command prompt and I'm definitely in the right partition. No Bootwiz folder here (not even renamed) however I notice program files and users folders in the LOSTFILE directory. These files have been XCOPIED to the correct locations. I hope the permissions are retained! :)

So this proves to me that OSS corrupted everything.....

I'll repeat the same process with OS GAMES as well.... boy this is taking some time.
I'll also get BootManager installed hopefully.

Still need to know if I should clean up the first two partitions from BOOT folders. Concerned OSS will screw it up again when I install it.

Cheers

Alex

Yes, the booting files need to be correct before installing OSS or it will pick up all the invalid entries again.

You could try this:

1. Boot to the DD CD and make sure the Studio partition is Active and not hidden and that the other partitions are hidden.
2. Boot to the Windows 7 DVD.
3. Press Shift-F10 to open the Command Prompt window.
4. C: should be the Studio partition.
5. Copy the contents of the \Boot folder to a backup (if wanted). Run robocopy c:\boot c:\boot2 /s
6. Delete the \Boot folder. Run rd c:\boot /s
7. Reboot back to the Windows DVD and select to Repair. It should find a problem since the folder was deleted. Let it fix it.

You may want to remove the \Boot folders on the Recovery and Game partitions too. Create backups if wanted. This way the repairs can hopefully just do them one at a time and not get all jumbled up.

Yeah didn't work with XCOPY. Still had issues with user profiles logging in. I forgot about robocopy. Everything else was correct. I'll do that next.

If that does not work it's time to give up methinks (crap!).
Looks like Norton Ghost has let me down as well as far as restoring images (I was careful about backups), at least I've got file backups.

Thanks for your help.

Are the originals still there? You could try using robocopy if they are. If OSS was protecting them and it got screwed up the files would be in the BOOTWIZ folder of the partition. This folder is probably hidden. The sub-folder is the hex version of the OSS ID and contains the actual folders that got moved. For example, it could be C:\bootwiz\5e74ef2c\Users.

Just wanted to make sure you look in the right place. I don't know why they would be in a "LOSTFILE" folder. Basically, what OSS does when it protects the folders is a "cut & paste" between the BOOTWIZ sub-folder and the original location.

Yup I've done DIR/AH throughout to find hidden files and folders. Not there. Robocopied the lost files this time. Also I found that it was a good idea to trim the Windows boot options using BCDEDIT. This worked! Although I'm missing many shortcuts after booting into OS SOUND STUDIO.

So I installed Norton Ghost on OS Sound studio and I'm in the process of restoring (well hopefully) the GAMES partition from backup. If this works I'll boot into GAMES and try and restore OS SOUND STUDIO as I think the backup will be better. Each time I will be hiding relevant partitions and trying to get each active partition to boot stand alone. Once this has happened I'll try and delete anything OSS related. Then I'll bite the bullet and have another go at OSS.

If this works then I need to find a way of backing up OSS and the partition info for next time.

I'm also wondering if there's a bug with OSS and RAID. I'm mirroring the disks using RAID on the motherboard (i.e. soft raid), I wonder if OSS fails to detect this. Would be surprising as the previous version of OSS worked well. Just a thought, may not be accurate.

Once the thread comes to its natural conclusion I;m going to log a support call to Acronis, I think there's some serious deficiencies in this version of the software. It should never have forced me to move files for starters, and the endless loop thing should have been trapped.

I really do appreciate your help, it makes a difference - more soon - this may take some time!

Cheers....

Here's a question, Norton Ghost comes with a utility called PARTINFO.EXE which simply reports the partition info of all drives and partitions. It checks to see if they are in a healthy state.

Is there anything similar with Acronis, i.e. I want it to check my drives for partition errors.
I see there's a check volume utility which simply runs CHKDSK, but I'm talking about the partition table.

Cheers

Alex

I don't think there is an Acronis partition checking program.

OSS should see the RAID okay. I didn't seen any signs of it not seeing it when looking at the BOOTWIZ.OSS files.

When you get ready to install OSS I would recommend that you create a new backup image of the drive (just in case). Also after OSS is installed, make sure the folders are not set to be protected (this will stop it from moving them). I have never figured out exactly what causes OSS to enable this option. I suspect it has to do with it thinking there are multiple versions of Windows on the partition (which it might think from all the BCD entries it found). I really don't feel like that option has a place on today's computers.

Additionally, check that the booting partition for each OSS menu item is not hidden (it will be marked as Active and Hidden in the entry's properties). If this happens, just boot into the one that's correct and post the BOOTWIZ.OSS file so I can fix it.

I've been after Acronis for many years to fix the long-standing bugs in OSS. The more complaints they hear the higher it may move up on their list.

Cheers... Another thing has been pointed out to me, I should run bootrec.exe /fixmbr before reinstall of OSS. There appears to be some residue.

Ghost partition is still restoring...

I'm finally back up and running after several attempts with Ghost.
Well that was an interesting week ;)

Thankyou very much for your help....!!!!!

OSS behaves worse than a virus in my view - it's too "clever" for it's own good, and when things go wrong it goes serious wrong. It seems it writes to folders other than BOOTWIZ - and I don't like that idea.

NB I haven't installed OSS, I'm just using a BootCD to activate partitions.
I think I might not use this again (well I might) - can you recommend a better bootloader?

Thanks again..... MudCrab!

============
CLEAN SHEET.
============

Well so as you know I've got everything to work, and I could boot cleanly off OS Sound Studio and OS Games after restore (by manually hiding/making partition active using DD CD). Also I cleaned up the BOOT and BOOTWIZ folders, not a trace of it was anywhere. I also cleaned up the MBR.

So I bit the bullet and very cautiously installed OSS. I made sure no files were "protected". However I made a minor mistake, I left a PEN drive in which got indexed, well nevermind!

So I looked at the auto generated bootwiz.oss file which was simply far too weird (whatever process parses this is totally unfit for purpose, Acronis needs to get their QA on this).

So I managed to boot into OSS Studio partition and hack the OSS file and I attach this file as well as the original auto generated file.

So everything now works fine except OS Games.

(a) In the UI if I select OS GAMES it states OS Studio is the boot partition for some reason. Not sure if this is important (see c).

(b) Windows boots, shows the initial startup animation but then never progresses from there. A hard reset is required.

(c) After (b) if I boot up using Disk Manager CD I notice it appears to have done the right thing as far as partitions are configured. i.e. All partitions are hidden except OS GAMES and the DATA partition (on the separate drive).

Is it possible you could look at my BOOTWIZ.OSS file Mudcrab?
In my own eyes it "looks" right, although I don't know how to configured within the tag (worries me). Also why does the original OSS put active="1" and hidden="1" on the same entry?
NB please note the partition setup has not changed at all.

Thanks again....!

Alex

Which file is the most current?

Well good news and bad news again.

The good news is I can now boot into OS Sound Studio and OS Games! I believe the problem was that I got the system_root_identifier entry wrong for OS Sounds Studio.

The bad news is it keeps writing cr*ppy %n Ultimate (recovered) entries to Bootwiz.Oss as you will see when you inspect the attached file (latest version).NB last four boot entries need to die in this file.

If I trim Bootwiz.Oss back to normal (with the partitions I need), reboot with Windows boot CD, completely delete BOOTWIZ folder on the OS games partition reboot to OS Games, it all comes bouncing back like a virus! Bootwiz folder and Bootwiz.Oss entries.

Arghhh :-)

Cheers!

Do you know what happens if I right click and delete the bad entries via the OSS UI?
Thanks

Usually, what I recommend in cases where OSS keeps detecting an OS is to just hide the entry so it doesn't show up in the OSS menu.

You may want to check the BCD files on each partition and see if they're okay or if anything got added. OSS may be picking up the entries from there.

Thanks Mudcrab

Probably good advice, however I'm a sucker for punishment.
I've been very careful with BCDEDIT throughout, all is fine (nice and lean) here.

From what I can see OSS places "backup" boot files in the Bootwiz folder on the OS Games folder.
It also puts the same files "backup" boot files in the Bootwiz folder on the Boot partition where the BOOTWIZ.OSS is.

** Do you have any idea where else it may detect settings? **

I have to admit, the more I look at this software the more I get angry with Acronis. There are CLEAR AND OBVIOUS BUGS here which I notice have been going for several years. Customers such as myself have lost several days (in my case a week) trying to repair what should have never happened in the first place. This leads me to think that Acronis does not care particularly about its customers if it is still selling a product like this.

Frankly I reckon Acronis's reputation would be in the dogs if you were not in these forums MudCrab. They are clearly selling a product not fit for purpose. Once this thread is over I will definately be logging a call to Acronis. I'm amazed that they haven't even commented ONCE on this long thread.

I would need to check a few things. I know what has worked in the past, but that may have changed in this last update. If OSS is still just picking up the standard BCD entries, it may be possible to bypass it by generalizing the BCD (setting it to "boot" instead of the specific partition). I know this still stops DD from detecting it properly. One of the Linux bugs in OSS was that it would start detecting Linux on every boot-up and add another entry -- gets annoying very fast.

For the record, I encourage you to complain to Acronis about it. OSS is a low priority to them so the more people that complain the greater chance it will get fixed. Don't hold your breath, though. Also, Acronis is very, very unlikely to post on the DD forums.

One of the features that's been requested for a long time is the ability to turn off automatic detection and to be able to add operating systems manually -- tell it what partition to boot and that's all it does.

Hmm doesn't seem to like the flags in Windows 7?

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit {default} device boot
The specified command line is not valid.
Run "bcdedit /?" for command line assistance.

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit {current} device boot
The specified command line is not valid.
Run "bcdedit /?" for command line assistance.

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit /enum

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=C:
path \bootmgr
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
displayorder {current}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7 Ultimate (recovered)
locale en-US
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {f6baedcb-1cf0-11e1-b0ed-806e6f6e6963}
nx AlwaysOff
bootlog No
sos No

.... Thanks.

If you're booted into Windows when doing it you need to use {current}. Also, you're not using /set.

For example:
bcdedit /set {current} device boot
bcdedit /set {current} osdevice boot
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot
bcdedit /set {memdiag} device boot

All this does is make it boot the Active partition instead of looking for a specific partition.

Doh! Sorry!

Done now for both partitions.
OSS did its automatic thing and recreated the shortcuts for Games and Studio partitions. Funnily enough it got it right this time.
I then attempted to delete the garbage entries from the OSS file but they got recreated again.

Latest OSS File attached.

Thankyou.....

OK Worked it out!

What I needed to do was do was delete and recreate the BCD database, I did it for both partitions anyway. Why the heck Windows didn't repair this automatically god only knows.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

And for good measure I followed your normalize procedure afterwards.
Hurrah!

So these are the issues with OSS that I find.

a) It screws up upgrades.
b) It badly parses the OSS file. e.g. It hides active partitions! It happily changes the partition to boot from, when the OS to boot from is on a different partition.
c) It does not check to see if the BCD is corrupt. Instead it blindly crawls through the database.
d) Worse - it makes alterations automatically without users say so
e) It should be offering backups of .OSS file to floppy at every auto reconfiguration stage.
f) There should be an option to abort any auto changes that OSS makes.
g) There needs to be an OSS file export/import facility from the OS UI
h) If you press CTRL+ALT+DEL in the GUI your PC freezes up.
i) And what's the deal with this "protected files" - nonsense nowadays?

Acronis you need to FIX THIS!!! This is a WAY below par product.

If you don't respond here I will be logging a call here to make you respond soon.

Cheers...

I will try to get someone to look at this thread and forward your list of issues.

MudCrab you are the star in all this.
Thankyou very much.....