Acronis OS Selector Problem

[kess]

I've been using the Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 and the OS Selector for a few months without too many problems. Recently I had to reinstall Windows XP because it wouldn't load. It seems that reinsallation overwrote the MBR because now the OS Selector does not load. I tried using Acronis' MBR repair disk, but that did not work. I tried running both the OS Selector and the Disk Director from Windows, but I get this error: "E000101F4: Acronis Disk Director has not found any hard drives." After entering the error code into Google, it seems that I need to reinstall the program, but I would like to know if I can keep my partitions--that is, if I reinstall, will it be able to re-detect my Mac partition? I think my only other choice is to use the Windows XP disc's "fix MBR" functionality, but since the OS Selector can't see any hard drives I'm worried that I'll lose access to that partition. Any help will be much appreciated!

Edited March 14, 2007 by kess

[cbmkgd]

Depending on how the winxp reinstallation was done (and where aoss was installed), yes, you might need to reinstall aoss.

 

An alternative is to let go of aoss, with at least two possible ways:

• by using osx's bootloader (darwin bootloader), which will see the winxp partition
  
• or by using winxp's bootloader (ntldr bootloader), with the 'chain0' method.
  

The interfaces will be less pretty, but it's functional and quicker.

Edited March 14, 2007 by cbmkgd

[kess]

I powered off my computer after it froze during a game, and somehow that messed up XP's files. The next time I turned the computer on I got a corrupt file error and after a while I gave up and "repaired" XP using the installation disc. It wasn't a new installation; fortunately all of my files were still there, XP just couldn't boot up. If I used one of those two loaders you mentioned, would they still be able to see the OS X partition I made with Acronis? I don't want to lose that partition.

 

Could you explain a bit more about each loader? I have the XP install disc but I've never heard about an XP bootloader.

[cbmkgd]

Even if diskdirector made the osx partition, you won't lose it if you get rid of acronis os selector (aoss), or reinstall. I.e. they won't be wiped out.

So try reinstalling.

 

Otherwise, here are some other info about the bootloaders.

Each os installs its own bootloader, even if you don't already see them in action.

 

In your current state, ie aoss non-working/non-present in the mbr, it's your winxp bootloader that boots winxp.

The file boot.ini contains the information as to which os to boot, but doesn't automatically detect os's like linux or osx.

So you have to tell winxp's bootloader to find osx. Read this article from the Wiki: Easy guide to chain0.

Except that you can use the chain0 file that you can find at the root of your OSX DVD (visible even in winxp), rather than from where they suggest.

Then you should get a menu item for osx, and when you select it, press F8 rapidly to get the darwin bootloader menu... which will give you again a choice of os's to boot. Yes, it's redundant...

 

If instead you decide to use osx's bootloader to take charge, you won't get the redundancy above. But you then need to make your osx partition active.

If you created the Acronis Bootable CD, you can boot on it, chose to load its DiskDirector, and then make your osx partition active (you could also do that from the OSX DVD* or any other tool).

Then that should get you the darwin bootloader right away. You might not have a choice menu, so press F8 rapidly on booting to get the menu.

 

Later you can edit the boot.plist so that you don't have to press F8 always, and have the menu for a few seconds. Consult the Tips&Tweaks: Messing with the boot options from the OSX86 wiki, specifically the "Speed up Darwin's timeout count-down" section.

 

_____________________________________________________

* See Rammjet's [How to] Setting Your Partition "Active" Using Fdisk in MacOSX

Edited March 14, 2007 by cbmkgd

[kess]

Thanks for your help.

 

In boot.ini, should I just add C:\chain0="Mac OS X86" or do I have to do something like the first line after [operating systems]?

 

This is what it looks like now:

 

[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
C:\chain0="Mac OS X86"

 

edit: Also, should I uninstall Acronis first, or will that mess up the MBR again?

Edited March 14, 2007 by kess

[cbmkgd]

The boot.ini should be ok; you might like to give yourself more than 3 seconds though, your choice.

 

Also, when you'll select "Mac OS X86", you might be redirected back to the original boot menu from the boot.ini; that's because, as i've explained, you should press F8 right away after the selection to get the osx boot menu, which will have winxp selected by default (because it's the active partition). This is the redundancy i've talked about.

(you can change the string inside "Mac OS X86" to whatever you want, eg "OSX86", etc.)

 

As for Acr OS Selector, it's mbr part is already overwritten. You could remove DiskDirector too if you want, shouldn't mess your mbr (but it might put back your original boot.ini, so back it up just in case).

After uninstall, you might be left with vestigial hidden "BOOTWIZ" folders; you can delete those.

But if the mbr messes again, well, reuse your winxp cd to repair.

 

If later you decide to use only OSX's bootloader (ie the one you see after selecting OSX in the winxp loader and pressing F8), then you can remove the line with chain0 in boot.ini (or put a semicolon in front of it to disable it).

 

Good luck.

[kess]

cbmkgd, thank you so much for your help! Your tips worked perfectly... I'm writing this in Safari

 

Thanks again, it's nice to be rid of Acronis.. it just has too many problems.

[cbmkgd]

Glad it worked out for you.

 

I've had problems with AOSS before too, until I installed it in a small non-system (ie without any OS's), fat32 partition, which isn't touched when reinstalling winxp, etc. Too bad Acronis doesn't make good suggestions for its location.

 

Anyway, I've switched myself to the darwin bootloader too on my main machine, just because it was quicker.