DD11 OSS - Disaster is complete - nothing works anymore

Just tried to reinstall the OSS - worked when I deleted the old Bootwiz entries. Restarted and error

Acronis loader
No configuration file is present.

again.

Cannot get to the USB rescue anymore. It still starts when selecting the USB stick the Win 7 system. Then in the OS I want to open the OSS and get the error - see attachment.

So whatever I try - uninstall, reinstall the system now just boots when selecting the USB stick as boot device and just to this OS. No way to get to the rescue programs on the USB stick anymore too.

OSS would need deactivated or you would need to boot to a Windows DVD and repair the MBR so OSS doesn't try to start. OSS may have taken over the booting of the flash drive. If that happens, booting the flash drive will attempt to load the OSS files from the hard drive or target the hard drive. The MBR on the flash drive would need repaired to fix it.

I found it worked better to boot from a CD when using OSS. OSS doesn't play nice with bootable media that's RW (like most flash drives).

Now I tried to recreate the rescue disk on the USB stick - don't have a DVD/CD here to write the iso. I guess this should fix the MBR on it. But the situation is still the same like before - cannot access any rescue media and it boots into Win7.

Now I tried to deactivate the OSS from within the system. I get the error - see attachment.

So now I cannot deactivate the OSS, I cannot repair/install it and I cannot get to the rescue data - what might not change anything. I am lost.

I tried to deactivate the OSS from within the DD as shown in "Deactivating_AcronisOSSelectorManually.doc". But I cannot get the view "As Partition Table". The entry is there but I cannot select it.

If I see it correctly the only option is to use the Windows DVD to repair the boot. If this does not work too anymore then goodnight.

Is there anything else I could do before I try the Windows DVD way? I am really worried since I found in other postings that this did not fix the problem too. Without a working system I could not even try to find a further fix on the Internet anymore. This would be the end.

Media Builder very often does not fix an invalid or corrupted MBR. You should "clean" the flash drive and then run Media Builder again. You can find instructions here (instructions are the same for Windows 7).

In OSS 10, you could only force a deactivation or uninstallation of OSS using the CD/flash drive version. The Windows version just aborts if it thinks there is no OS. I assume OSS 11 is the same since Acronis didn't really change it.

Repairing the MBR using the Windows 7 DVD is a very safe procedure. You shouldn't have a problem with it. However, since you're having other problems, I suggest you get the flash drive booting properly first.

First of all thank you very much MudCrab.

Just to make my story complete. I bought a CD so that I could burn the rescue programs since the USB stick did not work anymore but was at the same time the only way to get into my Win7 OS. Then I uninstalled from the CD the OSS - it did not ask me what system should be used afterwards and so was the result - no bootable system.

Then I used the Win 7 DVD to repair my system. Now I am still busy to correct all the drive letters of all my partitions and this in 6 OS. And I hope that all systems still work like before - I am not finished with all my checks and repairs. In addition to this I have to recreate my USB stick where I had the rescue disk installed - as said it does not work anymore after OSS.

To sum my experience up - I spent MANY hours and I am still not finished just to get back what I had before I installed the OSS. OSS was a very shocking and frustrating experience and this to the full extend. Will not use it anymore - this is sure.

If I had known how complicated your multi-boot system was to begin with I would have recommended a different method. I know OSS doesn't work well with the Microsoft method and yours is even more complicated than the standard version of that. Please don't take this as me blaming you or your system for the problem (I'm not). OSS shouldn't cause the problems it does and I have complained to Acronis many times about it (and will again).

For anyone else reading this, OSS (and any third-party boot manager) works best if each operating system is independent before you try to setup the new boot manager. It's also highly recommended to create an Entire Disk Image backup before installing OSS. If the operating systems are spread across more than one drive, include them all. It's often easier to restore the image(s) than to fix the problems.

MudCrab,

Rebuilding the system with the Win7 DVD was not the end of the story. I had to restore one Win 7 64 from backup so that the Win 7 DVD could find it again. An Entire Disk Image Backup with 3 TB disk space was not possible but at least I had single backups for all OS partitions.

Thank you for your support. Your Website has a lot of good information. At least this I could discover at my OSS adventure.

MudCrab,

One last question. Since OSS destroyed one system and one USB stick I am a bit worried that any of the other five systems might have been altered too. But to restore all of them is some work that I would like to avoid. You know best how OSS works. Is there a danger that the other OS might have been damaged?

So far they seem to work. But I do not want to find out in days or weeks that this is not really the case. I did not use the function to create a different system on the same partition. On the other hand the systems seem to have been cross-linked at least what the partition info in the OSS showed - boot from Win7 32 and system from Win 7 64 but actually running Win 7 32 and so on. Apart from the after the uninstall of OSS not working Win 7 64 all Win 7 systems have been cross-linked in this partition display. But I have no idea what this partition display in OSS really shows and what OSS really does and it is not important anymore. But one question remains - can I avoid to restore the backups of the five other OS because OSS might not have altered anything there?

Boot into each OS and check Disk Management. It should show the System partition as the booting (Active) partition (it will be the same for every OS). It should also show the partition of the OS booted as the Boot partition. Also verify that the drive letter assignment for the Windows partition is correct (usually C: for Vista/Windows 7 and C: or higher for XP). If everything looks correct, it should be fine.

Did you get the flash drive fixed? You should be able to using the DISKPART "clean" method.

MudCrab,

Thank you. I fixed the flash drive by deleting the partition and recreating it. Sad that the function to create a bootable media does not re-write the MBR. If they do not want to do it every time they could make a selection.

In respect of the restore - I will check what you described. In the end I even had to rebuild the partition table for the logical entries - but I guess not an OSS problem. But with your website I got to this link http://www.multibooters.co.uk/index.html.

I would say after reading your information and the information on this site I would call myself now a multiboot expert ;-) In addition I understand why partition tables get destroyed, why restore points disappear and many other things that will make my life much easier in the future.

So in the end the OSS adventure had something very positive. I have learned a lot. I do not want to go so far to recommend it. But if you want to learn how to recover your system it is a good starting point :-)))) Somehow I would like to try it again. The boot menu was so colorful ;-)

I know how you feel and it definately helps to learn how everything works. It also helps to have things setup correctly so OSS (or whatever boot manager is used) doesn't get mixed up. One of the major problems of booting the Microsoft way by restoring images is that you can easily end up with a set of isolated-type systems booting in a non-isolated fashion.

I still think OSS could be a really good boot manager if Acronis would just fix it.