Acronis disk director suite 9.0 User Manual

 

Installing and using several operating systems on a single PC

 

Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000–2005 

95 

 

One of the key benefits offered by Acronis OS Selector is the ability to add 
almost any new operating system to a PC, even if it already has one or more 
operating system  installed. Using Acronis OS Selector, a user is able to install:  

•  Several different copies of the same OS (e.g. Windows XP); 

•  Different operating systems from the same developers (e.g. Microsoft Windows 98 

and Windows XP);  

•  Operating systems from various developers (e.g. a Windows version and a Linux 

variant). 

In all cases, Acronis OS Selector eliminates software conflicts that might violate 
operating system stability and even result in failures. 

Acronis OS Selector supports and automatically recognizes the following 
operating systems: 
•  Various DOS environments: MS DOS 5.x–6.x; MS DOS 7.0 (not a separate 

product but is included in Windows 95); MS DOS 7.1 (not a separate product 
but is included in Windows 95OSR2/98); MS DOS 8.0 (not a separate product 
but is included in Windows Me). All Windows 9x and Windows NT operating 
systems: Windows 95/95 OSR2/98/Me/NT/2000/XP 

•  The most widespread Linux distributions 
•  The most widespread Unix PC distributions: FreeBSD, Solaris, QNX 

Below, you will find instructions for some of the most typical situations related to 
adding a second OS to a PC that already has one installed. 

Any Windows operating system consists of two parts, bootable and main.  

Windows 95/98/Me has the MS-DOS 7.0, 7.1, 8.0 operating system, 
respectively, as bootable, while Windows NT/2000/XP has NTLDR OS core 
loader (that is also a simple boot manager) that requires BOOT.INI configuration