Acronis® Disk Director® 11 Home User's Guide
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Table of contents 1 Introducing Acronis® Disk Director® 11 .................................................................................... 6 2 Installation and upgrade .......................................................................................................... 8 2.1 Hardware requirements ............................................................................................................ 8 2.2 Supported operating systems .......................................................
5.2 Resizing a volume ....................................................................................................................28 5.3 Copying a volume ....................................................................................................................29 5.4 Moving a volume .....................................................................................................................29 5.5 Merging basic volumes ..........................................................
8.3.2 8.3.3 8.3.4 8.4 Setting an operating system as the default ...............................................................................................59 Setting operating system passwords .........................................................................................................59 Setting operating system properties .........................................................................................................60 Editing operating systems..................................
1 Introducing Acronis® Disk Director® 11 Acronis® Disk Director® 11 is a powerful and easy-to-use tool for managing disks and volumes. With a comprehensive set of operations, you can organize your hard disk and volume configuration for optimal performance, while keeping your data safe. Key features Acronis Disk Director offers many features including: New! Create both basic and dynamic volumes The handy Create Volume wizard has been improved to support dynamic volumes creation.
Explore volume data, even on Linux volumes before performing operations Preview changes made in disk and volume layout before applying them Browse through the detailed information about all hard disks, volumes and file systems Acronis Recovery Expert Helps you to recover accidentally lost or deleted volumes on basic MBR disks.
2 Installation and upgrade This section answers questions that might arise before the product installation and guides you through the installation and upgrade of Acronis Disk Director. In this section Hardware requirements............................................................................. 8 Supported operating systems .................................................................... 8 Supported file systems ...............................................................................
2.3 Supported file systems Acronis Disk Director supports the following file systems for performing operations: FAT16 FAT32 NTFS Ext2 Ext3 ReiserFS3 Linux SWAP The operations resulting in a change of volume size—that is: Create (p. 26), Resize (p. 28), Copy (p. 29), Move (p. 29), Merge (p. 31), Split (p. 33)—are not available for the XFS, ReiserFS4, HPFS and JFS file systems. 2.4 Installing Acronis Disk Director To install Acronis Disk Director 11 1.
you will be able to access the Acronis OS Selector boot menu even if the system volume is unavailable. 2.6 Updating Acronis Disk Director To update Acronis Disk Director 11 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Download the latest product update from the official Acronis web site. Run the Acronis Disk Director setup file. Click Update/Remove Acronis Disk Director. Select Update. Proceed with the update. 2.7 Removing Acronis Disk Director To remove Acronis Disk Director 1.
All volume operations can be performed on volumes whose initial and resulting size is not larger than 100 MB. Operations on volumes whose size is larger than 100 MB cannot be committed. The following disk operations can be committed only if each volume on the disk is not larger than 100 MB: MBR to GPT (p. 42) and vice versa (p. 43) disk conversion; Basic to dynamic (p. 43) and vice versa (p. 44) disk conversion; Clone basic disk (p.
3 Basic concepts This section gives you a clear understanding of basic and dynamic disks and volume types. After reading this section, you will know the advantages and limitations of each possible volume configuration. In addition, you will be able to decide what types of disks and volumes best suit your needs for organizing data storage. In this section Basic and dynamic disks ........................................................................... 12 Types of basic volumes ............................
By using Acronis Disk Director, you can convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk (p. 44). You may need to do so, for example, to install an operating system other than Windows on that disk. Converting a dynamic disk to basic may require deleting some volumes on it, such as volumes that occupy more than one disk. 3.2 Types of basic volumes A basic disk can store two types of volumes: primary volumes and logical volumes.
Striped volume A volume that resides on two or more dynamic disks and whose data is evenly distributed across equally-sized portions of disk space (called stripes) on those disks. Access to data on striped volumes is usually faster than on other types of dynamic volumes, because it can be performed simultaneously on multiple hard disks. Unlike a mirrored volume (p. 78), a striped volume does not contain redundant information, so it is not fault-tolerant. A striped volume is also known as a RAID-0 volume.
System volume This is the volume from which any of the installed Windows operating systems starts—even if more than one is installed. The system volume contains files that are necessary to start Windows, such as boot.ini and Ntldr. There is always one system volume, whereas each of the installed Windows operating systems usually stores its files on its own volume, called a boot volume. Boot volume This is the volume on which the files of a particular Windows operating system are stored.
(If you are running Acronis Disk Director from one of those operating systems, the proper disk layout is already selected by default.) Otherwise, create the volumes by running Acronis Disk Director from a bootable media—see Working under bootable media (p. 53). After the volumes are created, you can perform other operations with them (including changing their size) under any disk layout. 16 Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
4 Getting started After reading this section, you will know how to run and use Acronis Disk Director, what precautions you should take, and how to perform the most common tasks you might need. In this section Precautions .............................................................................................. 17 User privileges .......................................................................................... 17 Running Acronis Disk Director ...................................................
4.3 Running Acronis Disk Director Running Acronis Disk Director in Windows 1. Select Start -> All Programs -> Acronis -> Disk Director -> Acronis Disk Director. 2. In the disk management area, examine the current layout of disks and volumes. 3. Add one or more management operations on disks and volumes to the queue of pending operations. These operations will take effect only after you commit them. 4.
1. Menu The menu provides access to all the actions, tools and settings of Acronis Disk Director. 2. Toolbar The toolbar displays the current disk layout (p. 21) and lets you perform the following actions on pending operations: Commit (p. 22), Undo and Redo (p. 22). Disk Management area The disk management area consists of two views. 3. Table view The table view lists all the disks and their volumes and lets you select any of them to perform operations. You can sort volumes by columns.
I/O errors are found on a dynamic disk. If a disk has errors, we recommended you to repair it as soon as possible to avoid data loss. Offline A dynamic disk is accessible in read only mode (if you switched it to offline previously), or not accessible at all (corrupted or intermittently unavailable). You can make the disk that you previously switched to offline, fully accessible—see Changing a disk status: offline to online (p. 45).
Important! For instructions explaining how to repair volumes with erroneous statuses, please refer to the Troubleshooting Disk Management article on the Microsoft website. 4.6 Disk layout On a machine with two or more operating systems, representation of disks and volumes depends on which operating system is currently running. A volume may have a different letter in different Windows operating systems.
4.7.1 Pending operations Almost all the operations are considered pending before you commit them. Until then, Acronis Disk Director will only demonstrate the new volume structure that will result from the operations, planned to be performed on disks and volumes. This approach enables you to control all planned operations, double-check the intended changes, and, if necessary, undo operations before they are executed.
To browse the Log Select View -> View log from the menu. Way of working with the log Use filters to display the desired log entries. You can also hide the unneeded columns and show the hidden ones. See the Filtering and sorting log entries (p. 24) section for details. In the log table, select the log entry (or log entries) to take action on it—see Actions on log entries (p. 23). Use the Information panel to review detailed information on the selected log entry. The panel is chevron.
4.8.2 Filtering and sorting log entries The following is a guideline for you to filter and sort log entries. To Do Display log entries for a given time period 1. In the From field, select the date starting from which to display the log entries. Filter log entries by owner and сode Type the required value (owner name, code number) in the field below the respective column header. 2. In the To field, select the date up to which to display the log entries.
Add a mirror (p. 36) to this volume. How to recover an accidentally deleted basic volume that has important data? Use the Recovery Expert (p. 54) tool. How to replace a hard disk without reinstalling the operating system and applications? Use the Clone (p. 41) operation. How to move dynamic disks from one system to another? Use the Import foreign disks (p. 46) operation. How to get quick access to the data stored on a Linux volume under Windows? Use the Browse files (p. 38) operation.
5 Volume operations This section describes all the operations that you can perform with volumes in Acronis Disk Director. Acronis Disk Director must obtain exclusive access to the target disk/volume. This means no other disk management utilities (such as the Windows Disk Management utility) can access it at that time. If you receive a message stating that the disk/volume cannot be blocked, close the disk management applications that use this disk/volume and start again.
3. Depending on the type of the new volume, specify one or more disks where you want to create the new volume: If the new volume is basic, select one basic disk and specify one region of unallocated space on that disk. Note: You cannot create a basic volume on a disk that already has four primary volumes; you first need to convert one of those volumes to logical—see Converting a primary volume to logical (p. 35). This restriction does not apply to GPT disks.
5.2 Resizing a volume This operation extends a volume—whether basic or dynamic—by taking unallocated space from one or more disks; or reduces a volume so that a portion of the volume’s free space becomes unallocated space. Extending a basic volume. A basic volume occupies a single region on a single basic disk. When you extend a basic volume, you can choose to leave the disk as basic and use only the unallocated space that is adjacent to the volume.
To perform the pending operation you will have to commit (p. 22) it. Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them. 5.3 Copying a volume This operation copies a volume by creating a new volume and copying the original volume’s content to it. Unlike copying all files from the volume, copying the volume itself ensures that the entire content of the new volume is the same. The original and new volumes can have different types and sizes.
The original and new volumes can have different types. For example, you can move a striped volume as a larger simple volume. Tip: If you want to relocate a basic volume within the same disk, you can use the resizing a volume (p. 28) operation instead of this operation. Namely, you can leave the size of the volume unchanged, but change the amount of unallocated space before and after the volume.
A reboot is required when you move the boot volume of the currently running Windows operating system, the system volume, or the active volume. 5.5 Merging basic volumes This operation lets you merge two adjacent basic volumes, even if their file systems are different. All data will remain intact and reside on the resultant volume. The resultant volume will have the same label, letter and file system as the main volume—that is, the volume to which data from the other volume will be added.
Note: The FAT16 and FAT32 file systems can be created on a volume of up to 2 GB and up to 2 TB in size, respectively. For the list of supported file systems, see Supported file systems (p. 9). 3. In Cluster size, specify the cluster size—also known as allocation unit size—for the file system. We recommend leaving the default size, which is marked in the list as (default). For more information on choosing the cluster size, see “More about cluster sizes” later in this section. 4.
5.8 Splitting a basic volume This operation splits a basic volume in two by using a portion of the volume’s free space to create another basic volume. When splitting a basic volume, you can move some files and folders from it to the new volume. The original basic volume will retain its type (primary or logical), volume letter, and volume label. The new basic volume: Will be a logical volume. Will be assigned the first available volume letter. Will have the same volume label as the original volume.
Note: Some file systems—for example, FAT16 and FAT32 (see below)—do not allow certain characters in the volume label. The OK button will remain disabled as long as the label you typed contains such characters. 3. Click OK to add the pending volume label changing operation. The results of the pending operation are immediately displayed as if the operation was performed. To perform the pending operation you will have to commit (p. 22) it.
5.11 Converting a primary volume to logical This operation applies to basic disks whose partitioning scheme is MBR. It converts a primary volume on such disk to a logical volume. Each basic MBR disk can have either up to four primary volumes, or up to three primary volumes plus an unlimited number of logical volumes. You need to convert a primary volume to logical if you want to later create a fifth volume on a disk that currently has four primary volumes.
5.13 Changing a partition type This operation changes the partition type of a volume—a hexadecimal number that normally identifies the file system or the intended use of the volume. For example, NTFS volumes have a partition type of 07h. By changing the partition type, you can “hide” the volume from the operating system. To change a partition type 1. Right-click the volume whose partition type you need to change, and then click Change partition type. 2.
To add a mirror to a volume 1. Right-click the basic or simple volume to which you want to add a mirror, and then click Add mirror. 2. Select the disk on which you want to place the mirror. The disks that do not have enough unallocated space to create the mirror are not available for selection. If you are adding a mirror to a basic volume or are placing the mirror on a basic disk, you will receive a warning that the corresponding disk (or disks) will be converted to dynamic. 3.
Breaking a mirrored volume means converting its two mirrors into two independent simple volumes with initially identical content. One of the two volumes will retain the drive letter and volume label of the mirrored volume. You can assign a drive letter and/or volume label to the other volume. This operation differs from removing a mirror—see Remove mirror (p. 37)—in that when you remove a mirror, only the remaining mirror becomes a simple volume.
To check a volume 1. Right-click the volume whose file system you need to check, and then click Check. 2. To find and fix errors (if any), select the Fix found errors check box. 3. To locate bad sectors and recover readable information, select the Try to fix found bad sectors check box. 4. Click OK to run the volume check. If the volume contains a very large number of files—for example, millions—the check can take a long time to complete. The results of the operation will be displayed in a separate window.
6 Disk operations This section describes all the operations that you can perform with disks using Acronis Disk Director. Acronis Disk Director must obtain exclusive access to the target disk/volume. This means no other disk management utilities (such as the Windows Disk Management utility) can access it at that time. If you receive a message stating that the disk/volume cannot be blocked, close the disk management applications that use this disk/volume and start again.
6.2 Basic disk cloning This operation is available for basic MBR disks. The cloning operation transfers all the source disk data to a target disk. The source disk volumes can be cloned to the target disk “as is”, or resized automatically with respect to the target disk size. You may want to use cloning in the following cases: If you are about to replace an old hard disk with a new one without reinstalling operating systems and applications on the new disk.
Using advanced options When cloning a disk containing the system volume, you need to retain operating system bootability on the target disk volume, by copying the original disk's NT signature. The NT signature is a record that is kept in the disk’s master boot record and uniquely identifies the disk. For the operating system to remain bootable, the target disk must have the same NT signature as the source disk. Important: Two disks with the same NT signature cannot work properly under one operating system.
To perform the pending operation you will have to commit (p. 22) it. Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them. Note: A GPT-partitioned disk reserves the space at the end of the partitioned area necessary for the backup area, which stores copies of the GPT header and the partition table. If the disk is full and the volume size cannot be automatically decreased, the conversion of the MBR disk to GPT will fail.
To convert a basic disk to dynamic 1. Right-click the basic disk you want to convert, and then click Convert to dynamic. You will receive a final warning about the basic disk being converted to dynamic. 2. Click OK to add the pending basic to dynamic disk conversion operation. Note: A dynamic disk uses the last megabyte of the physical disk to store the database, including the four-level description (Volume-Component-Partition-Disk) for each dynamic volume.
After the conversion the last 8 MB of disk space is reserved for the future conversion of the disk from basic to dynamic. In some cases the possible unallocated space and the proposed maximum volume size might differ (for example, when the size of one mirror establishes the size of the other mirror, or the last 8 MB of disk space is reserved for the future conversion of the disk from basic to dynamic).
The offline status means that a dynamic disk is accessible in the read-only mode. You may need to change an offline disk to online to make the disk that you switched to offline previously fully accessed. To make a disk online 1. Right click the offline disk, and then click Change status to online. 2. In the appearing window, click OK to confirm the operation.
If the disk can be reconnected or turned on, all you need to recover its functionality is to reactivate the disk. For information on how to bring a disk that is offline and missing back online, please refer to the following Microsoft knowledge base article: http://technet.microsoft.com/enus/library/cc732026.aspx. If the missing disk cannot be reactivated, or you would like to completely delete this disk from disk group, you can remove the disk from the LDM database.
7 Tools This section describes Acronis Bootable Media Builder and Acronis Recovery Expert tools. After reading this section, you will have learned how to create bootable media in order to use Acronis Disk Director on bare metal or outside of an operating system, and how to recover deleted or lost volumes. In this section Acronis Bootable Media Builder .............................................................. 48 Acronis Recovery Expert ...................................................................
WinPE proved to be the most convenient bootable solution in large environments with heterogeneous hardware. Advantages: Using Acronis Disk Director in Windows Preinstallation Environment provides more functionality than using Linux-based bootable media. Having booted PC-compatible hardware into WinPE, you can use not only Acronis Disk Director, but also PE commands and scripts and other plug-ins you've added to the PE.
2. 3. 4. 5. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=94bb6e34-d890-4932-81a55b50c657de08&DisplayLang=en Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows 7 (PE 3.0): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=696DD665-9F76-4177-A81139C26D3B3B34&displaylang=en [optional] Burn the WAIK to DVD or copy to a flash drive. Install the Microsoft .NET Framework v.2.0 from this kit (NETFXx86 or NETFXx64, depending on your hardware.) Install Microsoft Core XML (MSXML) 5.0 or 6.
These parameters are typically used when experiencing problems while working with the bootable media. Normally, you can leave this field empty. You also can specify any of these parameters by pressing F11 while in the boot menu. Parameters When specifying multiple parameters, separate them with spaces. acpi=off Disables Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI). You may want to use this parameter when experiencing problems with a particular hardware configuration.
nomouse Disables mouse support. module_name=off Disables the module whose name is given by module_name. For example, to disable the use of the SATA module, specify: sata_sis=off pci=bios Forces the use of PCI BIOS instead of accessing the hardware device directly. You may want to use this parameter if the machine has a non-standard PCI host bridge. pci=nobios Disables the use of PCI BIOS; only direct hardware access methods will be allowed.
The software runs the appropriate script and proceeds to the next window. When adding the plug-in to the existing PE ISO: 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Select Use WinPE files located in the folder I specify Specify the path to the folder where the WinPE files are located. [optional] Specify Windows drivers to be added to Windows PE. Once you boot a machine into Windows PE, the drivers can help you access the device where the backup archive is located. Click Add and specify the path to the necessary *.
3. From the list of supported video modes, choose the appropriate one by typing its number (for example, 318), and then press ENTER. If you do not wish to follow this procedure every time you boot from media on a given hardware configuration, re-create the bootable media with the appropriate mode number (in our example, vga=0x318) typed in the Kernel parameters window—see Linux-based bootable media (p. 50) for details. 7.1.2.
Expert. It will help you to recover boot sectors and partition tables on hard disks and make your system bootable again. The Recovery Expert first attempts to recover volumes "as is", i.e. logical volumes will be recovered as logical and primary as primary respectively. If the primary volume cannot be recovered as is, it will be recovered as logical. Also, if the logical volume cannot be recovered as is, it will be recovered as primary.
4. In the Searching for deleted volumes window, Acronis Recovery Expert scans all the selected hard disk drives for deleted volumes. Once a deleted volume is found, it will be displayed in the volume list. The search will, however, continue until all the remaining disks are scanned. If no volumes are found, you will be asked to close the Recovery Expert. The program can even find and display intersected volumes, that is, volumes that were created and deleted on the disk at different times.
8 Acronis OS Selector Acronis OS Selector is a powerful, reliable and easy-to-use boot manager that allows several operating systems on a single machine and lets you create different configurations for any installed operating system, including Windows 7.
Operations This section includes actions available for selected operating systems or their shortcuts — see Using shortcuts (p. 62).
8.3.1 Booting operating systems You can boot any operating system with Acronis OS Selector: From the boot menu (if activated) From under Windows from the Acronis OS Selector main window Booting an OS using the boot menu Having turned on the machine, wait for the Acronis OS Selector boot menu to be invoked and select and double-click an operating system to boot.
Enter and confirm a password in the Set Operating System Password dialog and click OK. An operating system password must be at least six characters long. You can also set an operating system password by clicking Set Password on the toolbar, in the OS section of the main menu, or in the context menu, invoked by a right-click. 8.3.4 Setting operating system properties Acronis OS Selector automatically determines properties of all operating systems installed on a machine.
8.3.4.5 Folders Acronis OS Selector automatically determines system folders for all Windows operating systems. System folders contain files required for an operating system to work properly. Windows 2000/XP utilizes Windows, Program Files, and Documents and Settings folders, while Windows 7 uses Program Data, Users, and other folders. For other operating systems (for example, Linux), you will have to specify system folders manually by using the Add button.
8.4.1 Hiding operating systems If needed, you can hide any operating system installed so it will not be shown in the boot menu and Operating systems section of the OS Selector main window. To hide an operating system 1. Select an operating system. 2. Click Hide in the Edit sidebar section, on the toolbar, or in the Edit section of the main menu. You can also hide an operating system using the context menu invoked by a right-click.
8.4.5 Copying operating systems Acronis OS Selector allows you to duplicate any installed operating system or its shortcut. It might be useful if you want to test unknown software before installing it on the main OS. Copying an operating system implies duplicating all its system files and folders and configuration files, as well as all programs installed, into a separate folder located inside the hidden BOOTWIZ system folder — see Acronis OS Selector installation (p. 9).
8.6 Setting Acronis OS Selector options You can set Acronis OS Selector options by clicking Options in the Tools sidebar section or selecting a respective item on the Toolbar or main menu. 8.6.1 General options Acronis OS Selector is able to protect system folders automatically when a new operating system is detected.
To disable global passwords, leave both input fields blank. When the default operating system is booted without invoking the boot menu, you might have to enter the boot menu password running Acronis OS Selector under Windows. 8.6.5 Input devices In this section of Acronis OS Selector options, you can provide extended support of input devices (mouse, etc.) in Acronis OS Selector boot menu. Using the Default parameter, the program automatically determines installed input devices.
8.7.1 Reactivating the Acronis OS Selector boot menu Because operating systems can change the Master Boot Record (MBR) during installation, Acronis OS Selector, which also uses the MBR, might become inoperable. If this happens, you will not have to reinstall Acronis OS Selector, but to restore it by reactivating it from a bootable media — see Bootable Media Builder (p. 48). After loading it, select Activate OS Selector in the Tools section of the main menu.
Acronis Disk Director allows conversion of free logical volumes into primary — see Converting a logical volume to primary (p. 35). Still, you must remember that there cannot be more than four primary volumes in a system. 2. Set the prepared volume active for the new operating system — see Setting a volume active (p. 36). When installing a new operating system from CD/DVD, select the CD item in the Operating systems area of the Acronis OS Selector main window.
4. Having inserted the disk with the operating system distribution, reboot and select your CD/DVD or floppy bootup from the boot menu. 5. Once booted from a disk, follow the instructions to install the operating system. 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 has been removed. However, you may choose not to do it.
8.7.3 Installing Linux and Windows on the same machine The Linux operating system is a modern, reliable and high-performance platform for both business and home users. Since its popularity is growing, many Windows users are choosing to sample Linux; however, not all of them are willing to change operating systems completely or have a second machine on which to install Linux. The preferred option is to run Windows and Linux on a single machine. 8.7.3.
until it is reactivated from a bootable media — see Reactivating the Acronis OS Selector boot menu (p. 66). After Linux is installed, Acronis OS Selector will automatically detect its presence and create a respective customizable icon in the Operating system area of the main program window. 70 Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
9 Glossary A Active volume The volume from which a machine starts. If no operating systems other than Windows are installed on your machine, the active volume is typically the same as the system volume (p. 81). If an operating system other than Windows, such as Linux, is installed on your machine, the active volume can be the volume where the program known as a boot loader, such as GRUB, is stored. The active volume is either a primary volume (p. 79) (on a basic disk) or a simple volume (p.
Block See Sector (p. 80). Boot sector The first sector (p. 80) of a disk (p. 73) or a volume (p. 82) that contains the initial code to start the operating system. The boot sector must end with a hexadecimal signature of 0xAA55. Boot volume The volume which contains files that are necessary for a particular Windows operating system to start and work. If only one Windows operating system is installed on your machine, the boot volume is usually the same as the system volume (p. 81).
Each non-empty file completely occupies one or more clusters. The typical size of a cluster is 4 KB. When formatting a volume, you can choose the cluster size for it. Smaller cluster sizes allow for more efficient storage of smaller files by reducing the amount of wasted disk space; but larger files may become more fragmented across the volume, which may increase the amount of time that is needed to access them. A cluster is also known as an allocation unit.
For more information about disk groups please refer to the following Microsoft knowledge base article: 222189 Description of Disk Groups in Windows Disk Management http://support.microsoft.com/kb/222189/EN-US/ Disk type The type of disk, which is determined by the way the disk is organized. A disk has one of two types: basic disk (p. 71) or dynamic disk (p. 74). Drive A physical device for accessing information on a disk (p. 73). Examples of drives include hard disk drives (p. 76) and floppy disk drives.
Disk Management (Windows XP Professional Resource Kit) http://technet.microsoft.com/enus/library/bb457110.aspx 816307 Best practices for using dynamic disks on Windows Server 2003-based computers http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816307 Dynamic volume A volume on one or more dynamic disks. Dynamic volumes provide greater functionality as compared to basic volumes; but older operating systems, such as Windows 98, might not be able to work with them. Different types of dynamic volumes suit different purposes.
Folder A named container for files that are stored on a volume. A folder can contain other folders (sometimes called subfolders). In the file system (p. 75), a folder is a table that contains a description of files (p. 75) and other folders. Such a structure allows creation of a folder tree that begins with the root folder (p. 79). Foreign disk A dynamic disk which is a part of a foreign dynamic disk group (p. 76).
H Hard disk A fixed storage media along with integrated electronics that consists of several magnetic platters that rotate synchronously on one spindle. Hard disks have a relatively high capacity and high read/write speed. A hard disk is also called a hard disk drive. Hidden volume A volume (p. 82) that is made invisible to an operating system. Hiding a volume is usually done by changing its partition type (p. 78). I Initialization The process of registering a disk in the operating system.
After the two volumes are merged into one, the resulting volume has the drive letter and volume label of the main volume. Master boot record (partitioning scheme) One of the two partitioning schemes of a disk. See Partitioning scheme (p. 79). Master boot record (sector) The first sector (p. 80) on a hard disk (p. 76). This sector usually stores information about the hard disk partitioning (p. 79). It also stores a small program that initiates the booting (p. 72) of the machine.
By assigning a particular partition type to a volume, you can mark the volume as a hidden volume (p. 77). For example, changing the partition type of an NTFS volume to 17h makes that volume hidden. Partitioning The process of creating a logical structure on a hard disk (p. 76). Partitioning usually involves creating one or more volumes (p. 82) on the disk. Acronis Disk Director is an example of a program that can perform partitioning. Partitioning scheme The method of organizing volumes on a disk.
R Root folder The folder (p. 75) where the folder tree of a file system (p. 75) begins. Starting from the root folder, you can uniquely describe the file (p. 75) position in the folder tree by sequentially naming all the intermediate nested folders—for example: \Windows\System32\Vmm32.vxd. In this example, the Windows folder is a subfolder of the root folder, the System32 folder is a subfolder of the Windows folder, and the Vmm32.vxd file is located in the System32 folder.
Access to data on striped volumes is usually faster than on other types of dynamic volumes, because it can be performed simultaneously on multiple hard disks. Unlike a mirrored volume (p. 78), a striped volume does not contain redundant information, so it is not fault-tolerant. A striped volume is also known as a RAID-0 volume. Swap file A file (p. 75) that is used by an operating system to store data that does not fit in the physical memory of the machine.
U Unallocated space Space on a disk that is available for creating a new volume or a part of it, or for extending an existing volume. Not to be confused with free space (p. 76) on a volume. V Volume An independent area of storage on a hard disk (p. 76). Typically, a volume contains a file system (p. 75), which is used to store files and folders. A disk can store more than one volume. Some volumes, such as spanned volumes (p. 80), can reside on more than one disk.
Spanned volume (p. 80): Occupies two or more disks in arbitrarily-sized portions. Mirrored volume (p. 78): Occupies two disks in two identical portions (mirrors). Faulttolerant. RAID-5 volume: Occupies three or more disks in equally-sized portions. Fault-tolerant. Striped volume (p. 80): Occupies two or more disks in equally-sized portions. Can provide faster data access. Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
10 Index offline to online • 20, 45 A online to offline • 19, 45 Acronis Bootable Media Builder • 18, 48, 66, 69 Changing a drive letter • 34 Acronis Disk Director main window • 18, 66 Changing a partition type • 25, 36 Acronis OS Selector • 57 Acronis Recovery Expert • 25, 54 Checking a volume for errors • 17, 25, 38, 53 Actions on log entries • 23 Cluster • 71, 72 Active volume • 71 Collecting system information • 24 Active, system, and boot volumes • 14, 20 Converting a logical volume to pri
Disk operations • 19, 40 Disk statuses • 19 Disk type • 74 Disks • 60 Display properties • 64 Drive • 74 Drive letter • 74 Dynamic disk • 13, 74, 80 Dynamic volume • 75, 82 H Hard disk • 73, 74, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82 Hardware requirements • 8 Hidden volume • 77, 79 Hiding operating systems • 61, 62 How to • 24 How to create bootable media • 49, 52 I Dynamic volume types support • 13, 15, 26 Importing foreign disks • 20, 25, 46 E Input devices • 65 Editing operating systems • 61 Installation and upgrade
Logical volume • 71, 77, 79, 82 M Machine • 77 Main volume • 77 Master boot record (partitioning scheme) • 78 R Reactivating the Acronis OS Selector boot menu • 50, 66, 70 Removing a mirror • 32, 37, 38, 47 Removing a missing disk • 46 Removing Acronis Disk Director • 10 Master boot record (sector) • 78 Renaming operating systems • 62 MBR disk • 13, 76, 77, 78 Resizing a volume • 9, 24, 28, 30, 40, 66, 69 Media builder • 78 Merging basic volumes • 9, 24, 25, 31 Mirror • 78 Mirrored volume • 13, 14, 7
Track • 73, 81 Types of basic volumes • 13, 26 Types of dynamic volumes • 13, 26 V Volume • 13, 71, 72, 77, 79, 80, 82 Volume label • 82 U Volume letter • 74, 82 Unallocated space • 76, 82 Volume operations • 19, 26 Undoing pending operations • 19, 21, 22 Volume statuses • 20 Updating Acronis Disk Director • 10 Volume type • 75, 82 Upgrading Acronis Disk Director • 10 W User privileges • 17 Using shortcuts • 58, 62 Working under bootable media • 16, 18, 50, 53 Working with disks having a 4-KB s
