User Guide
Copyright Statement Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2014. All rights reserved. "Acronis", "Acronis Compute with Confidence", "Acronis Recovery Manager", "Acronis Secure Zone", Acronis True Image, Acronis Try&Decide, and the Acronis logo are trademarks of Acronis International GmbH. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. VMware and VMware Ready are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions.
Table of contents 1 Introducing Acronis® Disk Director® 12 ...................................................................................6 1.1 2 3 4 New in this version ....................................................................................................................7 Installation and upgrade ........................................................................................................8 2.1 Hardware requirements ........................................................
5.2 Resizing a volume ....................................................................................................................28 5.3 Copying a volume ....................................................................................................................29 5.4 Moving a volume .....................................................................................................................30 5.5 Merging basic volumes ..........................................................
7.2 Acronis Recovery Expert ..........................................................................................................59 7.3 Acronis Disk Editor ...................................................................................................................60 7.3.1 7.3.2 7.3.3 7.3.4 7.3.5 7.3.6 Starting work with Acronis Disk Editor ........................................................................................................ 61 Main window, menu and controls ..............
1 Introducing Acronis® Disk Director® 12 Acronis® Disk Director® 12 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: Create both basic and dynamic volumes The handy Create Volume wizard has been improved to support dynamic volumes creation.
Change file systems Clean up disks Hide/unhide volumes Specify i-node density Change a cluster size 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 Reiser3 Linux SWAP The operations resulting in a change of volume size—that is: Create (p. 26), Resize (p. 28), Copy (p. 29), Move (p. 30), Merge, Split—are not available for the XFS, Reiser4, and HPFS file systems. JFS file system is not supported in the current edition of Acronis Disk Director. 2.
2. 3. 4. 5. 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. Depending on the operating system running, do either of the following: for operating systems starting from Windows Vista – select Start -> Computer -> Uninstall or change a program, then select Acronis Disk Director and click Uninstall.
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 ...........................................................................11 Types of basic volumes .............................
By using Acronis Disk Director, you can convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk. 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. 75), 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.
What is the cause of misalignment All Windows operating systems earlier than Vista use a factor of 512 bytes to create volume clusters. The volume start is aligned to 512-byte sectors. Also, these operating systems use the Cylinder/Head/Sector (CHS) addressing scheme. Volumes created with this scheme are aligned by cylinders/tracks of the disk. Usually, a track consists of 63 physical sectors.
How to fix volume misalignment using Acronis Disk Director Suppose that you have already created basic volumes on a disk with a 4-KB sector size, using Windows XP. Volumes already contain data. To align the misaligned volumes on the disk using Acronis Disk Director, clone this disk to another and then clone it back—see Disk cloning (p. 45). After cloning, Acronis Disk Director shifts the first volume start with 1MB offset, all the disk volumes will be aligned properly.
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 ......................................................
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. In the disk management area, examine how the layout of disks and volumes will look when the pending operations are completed. 5. Commit the pending operations.
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 view The disk management area contains the table of disks and volumes and the graphical panel. 3. Table The table lists all the disks and their volumes and lets you select any of them to perform operations.
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.
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. For example, volume E: might appear as D: or L: when you boot another Windows operating system installed on the same machine. It is also possible that this volume will have the same letter E: under any Windows operating system installed on the machine.
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 collapsed by default.
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. 2. In the To field, select the date up to 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.
Add a mirror to this volume. How to recover an accidentally deleted basic volume that has important data? Use the Recovery Expert (p. 59) tool. How to replace a hard disk without reinstalling the operating system and applications? Use the Clone (p. 45) operation. How to move dynamic disks from one system to another? Use the Import foreign disks (p. 50) operation. How to get quick access to the data stored on a Linux volume under Windows? Use the Browse files (p. 39) 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.
2. Specify the type that the new volume will have. Every volume type is provided with a brief description to let you better understand the advantages and limitations of each possible volume type. To learn more about volume types—see Types of basic volumes (p. 12) and Types of dynamic volumes. The list of volume types contains only the types that are supported by the current operating system. 3.
6. Click Finish to add the pending volume creation operation. The results of the pending operation are immediately displayed as if the operation had been performed. To perform the pending operation you will have to commit it (p. 22). Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them. 5.
By default, this option does not apply to the boot volumes on the disk. To include these volumes, select the Use free space on boot volumes check box. 4. Examine how the resized volume will be located on the disk or disks, by using the preview area at the bottom of the window. 5. Click OK to add the pending volume resizing operation. The results of the pending operation are immediately displayed as if the operation had been performed. To perform the pending operation you will have to commit it (p. 22).
To perform the pending operation you will have to commit it (p. 22). Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them. 5.4 Moving a volume This operation moves a volume by creating a new volume, copying the original volume’s content to it, and then deleting the original volume. Unlike moving all files from the volume, moving the volume itself ensures that the entire content of the new volume is the same.
Moving system, boot, and active volumes Important: Do not move any of these volumes unless you absolutely need to. If you want to transfer your system to a new hard disk, consider disk cloning instead—see Basic disk cloning (p. 45). The machine or its operating system will not always remain bootable after you move such volume.
5.6 Formatting a volume The formatting operation prepares a volume to store files and folders, by creating a file system on it. Caution: Formatting destroys all data that is currently stored on the volume. You may want to format a volume in the following cases: When you are creating the volume. In this case, the formatting window is part of the Create Volume Wizard. When you want to quickly destroy data on the volume—for example, as a security best practice.
5.7 Deleting a volume This operation deletes a selected volume. The space that was occupied by the volume becomes unallocated space on the corresponding disk or disks. Caution: After you delete the volume, all data that is stored on it will be lost. Tip: Deleting a mirrored volume means deleting both of its mirrors. For information on how to delete only one mirror, see Removing a mirror (p. 37). To delete a volume 1. Right-click the volume that you want to delete, and then click Delete volume. 2.
5.9 Changing a volume label The volume label is a short name that you can assign to a volume to better differentiate it from other volumes.
The change will affect only the Windows operating system whose disk layout is currently selected—by default, the currently running Windows operating system. For information on how to select the disk layout, see Disk layout (p. 21). Caution: Avoid changing the drive letter of a boot volume. Otherwise, the corresponding Windows operating system or some of the installed programs might fail to work normally. To change a drive letter 1.
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 logical volume to primary if you want to restore the bootability of a machine whose system volume was accidentally converted to logical. If the disk contains more than one logical volume, you can convert a logical volume to primary only when there are two or less primary volumes on the disk.
Note: By setting the new volume active, the former active volume letter might be changed and some of the installed programs might stop running. 2. If another active volume is present in the system, you will receive a warning that the previous active volume will no longer be active. Click OK in the Warning window to add the pending volume setting active operation. Even if you have the operating system on the new active volume, in some cases the machine will not be able to boot from it.
When a disk containing one of the mirrors becomes missing—for example, after you replaced a failed hard disk drive with a new one You can later make the volume fault-tolerant again by adding a mirror to it—see Add mirror. You cannot remove a mirror when both disks containing the mirrored volume are missing. To remove a mirror from a mirrored volume 1. Right-click the mirrored volume from which you want to remove a mirror, and then click Remove mirror. 2. Select the mirror that you want to remove.
5.18 Browsing a volume's content Before configuring any operations on a volume—we recommend you to view its contents to make sure you choose the right volume. It can be especially useful in cases when a volume cannot be seen by Windows Explorer—for example, a volume with Linux file systems, or when running Acronis Disk Director from bootable media where there are no tools to view what is exactly stored on a volume. To browse a volume's content 1.
Acronis Disk Director does not perform defragmentation itself, rather it launches the Disk Defragmenter tool (Defrag.exe) included in Windows operating system. To defragment a volume 1. Right click the volume you need to defragment, and then click Defragment. 2. In the Defragmentation window, click OK to start defragmenting the volume. Depending on the amount of fragmented files, the defragmentation may take a long time to complete. The results will be displayed in a separate window. 5.
Maximum volume size 2 GB (4-KB Cluster Size) or 4 GB (64-KB Cluster Size) 2 TB (4-KB Cluster Size) or 8 TB (64-KB Cluster Size) 2 TB (4-KB Block Size) or 32 TB (8-KB Block Size) 2 TB (1-KB Block Size) or 32 TB (8-KB Block Size) Maximum file size 2 GB 4 GB 2 TB 2 TB Maximum file name length 255 255 255 254 Partitioning scheme MBR MBR MBR, GPT, APM MBR, GPT To change a file system 1. Right-click the volume whose file system you need to convert, and then click Change file system. 2.
Unhiding a hidden a volume means changing the volume type so that it will be visible by the operating system. You may want to unhide a volume in order to: Make a previously hidden volume again visible to the operating system. Access data and make changes to files stored on a hidden OEM volume. If you have Acronis OS Selector installed on your computer, you need to mark a volume you want to unhide as unhidden in Acronis OS Selector also. To unhide a volume 1.
To perform the pending operation you will have to commit it (p. 22). Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.
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.
To perform the pending operation you will have to commit it (p. 22). Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them. 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.
An information window will pop up, stating that you are about to convert MBR to GPT. 2. Click OK to add the pending MBR to GPT disk conversion operation. The results of the pending operation are immediately displayed as if the operation had been performed. To perform the pending operation you will have to commit it (p. 22). Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.
6.5 Disk conversion: basic to dynamic You would want to convert a basic disk to dynamic in the following cases: If you plan to use the disk as part of a dynamic disk group If you want to achieve additional disk reliability for data storage. 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.
any volumes that are only supported by dynamic disks (all volume types except Simple volumes), then you will be warned here about the possible damage to the data involved in the conversion. 2. Click OK to add the pending dynamic to basic disk conversion operation. The results of the pending operation are immediately displayed as if the operation had been performed. To perform the pending operation you will have to commit it (p. 22).
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/en-us/library/cc732026.aspx. 6.8 Changing a disk status: offline to online Effective for Windows Vista SP1, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 operating systems and applies to the current disk layout (p. 21). The offline status means that a dynamic disk is accessible in the read-only mode.
To perform the pending operation you will have to commit it (p. 22). Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them. 6.10 Removing a missing disk The Missing status occurs on a dynamic disk when the disk has been corrupted, turned off, or disconnected. The Logical Disk Manager (LDM) database keeps information about the missing disk because such disk might contain parts of dynamic volumes, such as mirrored volumes, that can be repaired.
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 ..............................................................52 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.
To install Windows AIK: 1. Depending on your operating system, download and install one of these packs: AIK for Windows Vista and Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or later (PE 2.0): http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C7D4BC6D-15F3-4284-9123-67983 0D629F2&displaylang=en AIK for Windows Vista SP1 (PE 2.1): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=94bb6e34-d890-4932-81a5-5b50c 657de08&DisplayLang=en AIK for Windows 7 (PE 3.0): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.
If not configured, the Acronis loader waits for someone to select whether to boot the operating system (if present) or the Acronis component. If you set, say, 10 sec., Acronis Disk Director will launch 10 seconds after the menu is displayed. 4. The type of media to create. You can: create CD, DVD or other bootable media such as removable USB flash drives if the hardware BIOS allows for boot from such media build an ISO image of a bootable disc to burn it later on to a blank disc 5.
Disables loading of the USB (Universal Serial Bus) subsystem. nousb2 Disables USB 2.0 support. USB 1.1 devices still work with this parameter. This parameter allows you to use some USB drives in the USB 1.1 mode if they do not work in the USB 2.0 mode. nodma Disables direct memory access (DMA) for all IDE hard disk drives. Prevents the kernel from freezing on some hardware. nofw Disables the FireWire (IEEE1394) interface support. nopcmcia Disables detection of PCMCIA hardware.
Bootable Media Builder supports only x86 WinPE 2.x, WinPE 3.0, WinPE 4.0, and WinPE 5.0. These WnPE distributions can also work on x64 hardware. Adding Acronis Plug-in to WinPE ISO To add Acronis Plug-in to WinPE ISO: 1. When adding the plug-in to the existing Win PE ISO, unpack all files of your Win PE ISO to a separate folder on the hard disk. 2. Start the Bootable Media Builder either by selecting Tools > Acronis Bootable Media Builder or, as a separate component. 3.
system will be used. For bare metal, or if no Windows operating system is found, the disk layout will be used according to the bootable media environment (Linux-based or Windows PE). 3. The Linux-based bootable media shows local disks and volumes as unmounted (sda1, sda2...). 4. The log lifetime is limited to the current session. You can save the entire log or the filtered log entries to a file. 7.1.2.
echo iscsiadm parted sh egrep kill pccardctl sleep fdisk kpartx ping ssh fsck ln pktsetup sshd 7.2 zcat Acronis Recovery Expert Acronis Recovery Expert is an easy-to use tool that lets you recover volumes on a basic MBR disk that were accidentally deleted or damaged due a hardware or software failure.
Recovering volumes in manual mode The manual recovery mode lets you take full advantage of the volume recovery. You will be able to specify the searching method, disks to search on, and volumes to recover. 1. In the Recovery mode window, choose Manual. 2. In the Unallocated Space Selection window, select unallocated space on basic disks where the deleted volumes used to be located. If you are not sure about the location of the deleted volumes, select all the unallocated spaces on all the basic disks. 3.
Editing disks..............................................................................................62 View..........................................................................................................63 Search.......................................................................................................63 Usage examples .......................................................................................64 7.3.
7.3.3 Editing disks The Edit menu lets you access the main operations with blocks of given hard disk sectors. You can edit hard disk data directly in the fields of any view mode — see View (p. 63). Let us consider the disk editing in the As Hex view mode. Selecting data Any view mode lets you select blocks of disk sectors with the mouse or with the keyboard. In the Hex view mode, use the following to select blocks: With a mouse.
Reading a block from a file Not available under Linux-based bootable media The Read from file menu item lets you read the block from a previously saved file and insert it into a disk sector. To read a block from a file 1. 2. 3. 4. Place the cursor to the necessary sector byte, and click Read from file. In the Read from file window, click Browse and specify the file. Click OK. The file content will be inserted to a sector from the current cursor position. Click Save sector (Ctrl+S) to save changes. 7.3.
(CYL x HDS + HD) x SPT + SEC – 1, where CYL, HD and SEC are cylinder, head and sector numbers in the CHS coordinates (Cylinder – Head – Sector); HDS is the number of heads per disk and SPT is the number of heads per track. You can return to a sector from another one by selecting the Back item in the Search menu (or by pressing the Ctrl + B key combination). 7.3.6 Usage examples This section describes how to use Acronis Disk Editor for the most common scenarios. 7.3.6.
5. Place the cursor at the very beginning of the first sector byte (Absolute sector 0, or 0000 in Hex), and then click Read from file. 6. In the Read from file window, click Browse and specify the file storing the MBR code. 7. Click OK. The file content will be inserted into a sector from the current cursor position. 8. Press Ctrl+S key combination to save changes. 9. Reboot the machine. 7.3.6.2 Copying the MBR to another disk This example applies to basic disks whose partitioning scheme is MBR.
2. In Acronis Disk Editor, press the F2 key to switch to the Hex view mode. 3. Place the cursor at the very beginning of the first sector byte (Absolute sector 0, or 0000 in Hex). Then, press the Shift+Ctrl+End key combination to select the rest of the disk sectors. 4. Click Fill and enter the 0 (zero) fill value. 5. Click OK and then confirm the operation.
5. 6. 7. 8. 9. contain the information that we are looking for, we should search for the next JFIF entry until we find the one we are looking for. Once the required data is found, create a selection as follows. Select the beginning of the sector where the JFIF letter combination appears. Then hold down the Shift key and use the arrow keys (or Page Up and Page Down keys) to select the rest of sectors up to the end of the sector where the OLF letter combination is.
8 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. 78). 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. 76) (on a basic disk) or a simple volume (p.
Block See Sector (p. 77). Boot sector The first sector (p. 77) of a disk (p. 70) or a volume (p. 79) 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. 78).
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. 68) or dynamic disk (p. 71). Drive A physical device for accessing information on a disk (p. 70). Examples of drives include hard disk drives (p. 73) and floppy disk drives.
Disk Management (Windows XP Professional Resource Kit) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/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. 72), a folder is a table that contains a description of files (p. 72) and other folders. Such a structure allows creation of a folder tree that begins with the root folder (p. 76). Foreign disk A dynamic disk which is a part of a foreign dynamic disk group (p. 73).
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. 79) that is made invisible to an operating system. Hiding a volume is usually done by changing its partition type (p. 75). 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. 76). Master boot record (sector) The first sector (p. 77) on a hard disk (p. 73). This sector usually stores information about the hard disk partitioning (p. 76). It also stores a small program that initiates the booting (p. 69) of the machine.
By assigning a particular partition type to a volume, you can mark the volume as a hidden volume (p. 74). 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. 73). Partitioning usually involves creating one or more volumes (p. 79) 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. 72) where the folder tree of a file system (p. 72) begins. Starting from the root folder, you can uniquely describe the file (p. 72) 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. 75), 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. 72) 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. 73) on a volume. V Volume An independent area of storage on a hard disk (p. 73). Typically, a volume contains a file system (p. 72), which is used to store files and folders. A disk can store more than one volume. Some volumes, such as spanned volumes (p. 77), can reside on more than one disk.
Spanned volume (p. 77): Occupies two or more disks in arbitrarily-sized portions. Mirrored volume (p. 75): Occupies two disks in two identical portions (mirrors). Fault-tolerant. RAID-5 volume: Occupies three or more disks in equally-sized portions. Fault-tolerant. Striped volume (p. 77): Occupies two or more disks in equally-sized portions. Can provide faster data access.
