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Recommendations for safe usage of Boot-US

Please pay attention to the following recommendations. They will help you to avoid problems when setting up a multi-boot system. If you face a problem please try to find the cause of the problem and then take the appropriate measures. Even if at first glance the whole system seems to be corrupt usually only a small part of the data are changed. Often everything can be repaired easily with standard tools. A complete re-installation of the system is definitely the very last option which is appropriate only in extreme cases.

Backup your data
The most important rule is to backup all important data on independent storage media. If something goes wrong during the installation of another operating system or the boot manager and a new installation of the operating system is necessary then you can restore your data, although this would require a considerable amount of time.

Any questions ?
If you have any question or something is not clear to you, please try to resolve your queries before you continue. The chapter glossary explains the important terms which you will come across when setting up a multi-boot system.

Is the information displayed correctly ?
When Boot-US starts up it collects the information about all partitions on all hard disks and displays that on the initial screen. Please check whether all partitions are displayed correctly and whether the disk parameters (number of cylinders, heads, sectors and capacity) have been correctly determined. If there is something wrong or if there are any error messages issued by Boot-US do not install other operating systems or the boot manager.

Save partition and boot sectors
Before you begin to experiment with the boot manager it is strongly recommended that you save the list of all partition and boot sectors from all disks to an independent media, e.g. a USB stick. The created file contains all sectors which might get modified by the boot manager installation and operation. These sectors can be saved and restored both by the Windows program Boot-US and the command-line utility bootusc.exe.

Installation to removable media
It is strongly recommended to install the boot manager first to a removeable media (USB stick, CD/DVD, diskette) and not on the hard disk. It is important that you choose the setting "Do not change partitions". With this setting no partitions are changed. After the boot manager has been installed to the removeable media you can verify that no data have been changed on the hard disk. Just restart your system and you will notice that everything works as before. Afterwards you can try booting the configured entries by the boot manager residing on the removeable media.

Installation in primary partition
When the installation to a removeable media is successful one can think of installing the boot manager Boot-US to a primary partition on the first hard disk. Please again use the setting "Do not change partitions" when you install the boot manager Boot-US to a primary partition.

Installation in MBR
You should install the boot manager of Boot-US to the MBR only if this is necessary i.e. when you need the boot manager partition for other purposes. The advantage of the installation in the MBR is that no additional partition is occupied. The disadvantage is that for repairing problems more effort is required.