Acronis Disk Director 11 Home: How to Install Several Operating Systems Using OS Selector

Installing several operating systems on the same PC using OS Selector

This article applies to:

Acronis Disk Director 11 Home

Introduction

Acronis OS Selector is a boot and partition manager. As a boot manager it allows you to multiboot between several operating systems installed on your computer.

(!) Acronis OS Selector allows you to install an older operating system where a more recent operating system is installed: e.g. you can install Windows XP on a computer with Windows 7.

Solution

Before installing additional operating systems on your computer, install Acronis Disk Director 11 Home and activate OS Selector in your main system. See Acronis Disk Director 11 Home: Installation and Acronis Disk Director 11 Home: Installation of Acronis OS Selector.

(!) If you want to install the new operating system using CD/DVD, in OS Selector go to Tools -> Options -> Startup Options and make sure that option Do not load CD-ROM drivers is unchecked:

(!) If you want to install a new operating system from floppy and floppy is not present in the Operating Systems list, create a new Boot from floppy item: select OS -> New -> Boot from floppy in the menu.

Installing additional Windows OS on a separate volume

To install a new Windows operating system on a separate volume, do the following:

Prepare a free primary volume for the new Windows system. You can create a new partition using unallocated space on disk, resize existing partition using the Resize function or Split an existing volume:
Make the prepared volume active for the new operating system:
- In Operating systems menu, right-click on the CD (or on Boot from floppy, if you are installing from floppy) and select Properties in context menu:
- In Edit Operating System Properties window go to Partitions, select the prepared partition in the list and check Active:
  
  Press OK to close Edit Operating System Properties window;
Insert the installation CD/DVD (or floppy). Reboot and select your CD/DVD or floppy bootup from the boot menu (in BIOS) and follow the instructions to install the operating system.
(!) You should physically reboot the computer and boot from CD/DVD (or floppy) before OS Selector loads in order to start the installation. If you boot the installation CD/DVD from OS Selector menu using the Boot button, the installation may fail.

During installation, the Windows bootable part will be automatically placed on the volume that you marked as active using OS Selector. When you boot either version of Windows using OS Selector later, each operating system in the list will recognize the volume where its bootable part is located as active.

Installing additional Windows OS on a separate disk

To install a new Windows operating system on a different disk, do the following:

In Operating systems menu, right-click on the CD (or on Boot from floppy, if you are installing from floppy) and select Properties in context menu:
In Edit Operating System Properties window go to Disks and make the target disk first in the boot order: check the option Specify boot order manually and use Up and Down buttons to make target disk first in the list:

Press OK to close Edit Operating System Properties window;
Insert the installation CD/DVD (or floppy). Reboot and select your CD/DVD or floppy bootup from the boot menu (in BIOS) and follow the instructions to install the operating system.

(!) You should physically reboot the computer and boot from CD/DVD (or floppy) before OS Selector loads in order to start the installation. If you boot the installation CD/DVD from OS Selector menu using the Boot button, the installation may fail.

By setting the target disk to be the first, you will force the boot part of Windows to be installed on that disk so that the new operating system can boot, even if the first disk is damaged or removed.

If you need to install several copies of the same Windows operating system (e.g. two or more copies of Windows 7, each having its own properties and software sets) you can use one of the above methods for installation. Alternatively, you can use Operating system copy feature: program will fully duplicate contents of Windows, Program Files, Users, and Documents and Settings folders, including all software installed inside the hidden BOOTWIZ system folder.

To copy an operating system, select it in the list of operating systems and choose Edit -> Copy:

(!) The copied system will reside on the same partition as the original system. Operating system copy does not allow copying a system onto a different disk/partition.

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