ACRONIS DISK DIRECTOR SUITE 10.0 User Manual Download

Page: 1 / 128

Acronis

Disk Director Suite 10.0

User’s guide

www.acronis.com

Summary of Contents for DISK DIRECTOR SUITE 10.0

Page 1: ...Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 0 User s guide www acronis com...

Page 2: ...without the explicit permission of the copyright holder Distribution of the work or derivative work in any standard paper book form for commercial purposes is prohibited unless prior permission is ob...

Page 3: ...ies of any kind in the software except as specifically permitted above D Attempting to unassemble decompile or reverse engineer the software in any way E Granting sublicenses leases or other rights in...

Page 4: ...TITIONS 33 CHAPTER 4 MANUAL PARTITION OPERATIONS 38 4 1 MAIN PARTITION OPERATIONS 38 4 2 ADDITIONAL PARTITION OPERATIONS 57 CHAPTER 5 WORKING WITH ACRONIS RECOVERY EXPERT 67 5 1 AUTOMATIC RECOVERY 68...

Page 5: ...LE MEDIA BUILDER 108 9 1 GENERAL INFORMATION 108 9 2 CREATING BOOTABLE MEDIA 108 APPENDIX A HARD DISK AND FILE SYSTEMS 111 A 1 HARD DISK ORGANIZATION 111 A 2 HARD DISK PARTITION 112 A 3 PARTITION TYPE...

Page 6: ...partition Hide or protect with a password any operating system on your PC Duplicate installed operating systems and define different configurations for each copy Recover boot records files and folders...

Page 7: ...en if the hardware is identical on both computers Acronis OS Selector now can manage situations like that and automatically set the disk order required for booting the selected operating system Beside...

Page 8: ...lation or working problems that you can t solve by yourself using this manual and the readme txt file e mail the technical support team You will need to provide the serial number of your Acronis Disk...

Page 9: ...r with a Pentium or similar CPU 128 MB RAM A floppy or a CD RW DVD RW drive A mouse recommended 1 2 Supported Operating Systems Windows NT 4 0 SP 6 Windows 2000 Professional SP 4 Windows XP SP 2 Windo...

Page 10: ...keep the program loader Acronis OS Selector will also copy OS system files found on your PC into this folder to avoid problems during bootup and to simplify adding new OS in the future Acronis OS Sele...

Page 11: ...plication or data partitions must be done very carefully to avoid potential hard disk booting or data storage problems Acronis Disk Director Suite has been thoroughly tested to work with numerous hard...

Page 12: ...s Disk Director Suite for the first time When you run the program for the first time you will be prompted to choose whether you want to work in Automatic Mode or Manual Mode Automatic Mode provides en...

Page 13: ...cated disk space or other partitions Copy partition wizard enables you to copy a partition Recover partitions wizard enables you to recover any deleted or damaged partitions Working with Recover parti...

Page 14: ...ition list The main window appearance differs depending on the selected operation mode see 2 1 Acronis Disk Director Suite Logical Organization The difference applies to the available operation list i...

Page 15: ...ize type file system 2 3 Calling Partition Operations All partition operations in both modes are called and executed similarly 2 3 1 Calling the main operations Any operation can be launched By select...

Page 16: ...per i node which is not found on the FAT menus 2 3 3 Invoking Acronis Disk Director Suite wizards Wizards are invoked from the Wizards submenu and the corresponding sidebar list For example select Wiz...

Page 17: ...ll not be able to undo any actions or operations after you Proceed the operation 2 4 5 Modifying pending operations All of your actions result in the creation of pending operations For example you can...

Page 18: ...ations Redo from the main menu or press Ctrl Y Click the Redo Last Action toolbar button As user actions result in creating pending partition operations as mentioned above undoing them results in canc...

Page 19: ...ling a wizard and wizard created pending operations in the usual way selecting Operations Undo or pressing Ctrl Z or clicking Undo Last Action Acronis Disk Director Suite shows the wizard and its resu...

Page 20: ...ection If you protect Acronis Disk Director Suite with a password and forget it you will have to uninstall Disk Director Suite see 1 5 Removing Software and install it again 2 6 Viewing logs Acronis D...

Page 21: ...filters error messages the exclamation sign in a yellow triangle filters warnings and the i in the blue circle filters information messages To select columns step parameters to display right click the...

Page 22: ...n or video files on a partition Store backups images of other partitions disks on a partition Install a new operating system or swap file on a partition Create partition wizard lets you create a parti...

Page 23: ...the largest unallocated area For example if you have 5 GB and 12 GB unallocated areas the wizard will offer to create a partition on the 12 GB area If you want to create a partition on the 5 GB unallo...

Page 24: ...ile system on this partition It will be disabled in the File System wizard page Partition type selection window A hard disk can contain up to four primary partitions If they already exist Active and P...

Page 25: ...file allocation table etc 8 On the next wizard page you will be asked to select a partition letter Partition Logical Drive Letter selection window At startup an operating system assigns letters C D to...

Page 26: ...ssigned C If there s no such partition C is assigned to the first suitable primary partition Similarly and consecutively one of the primary partitions from other hard disks is considered They are assi...

Page 27: ...D DATA E etc WIN98 WINXP and DATA are partition labels See also Appendix C Glossary Label 10 The last wizard page graphically shows you the new disk partition structure including those just created Cr...

Page 28: ...page shows logical disks or partitions on the selected physical disk See also Appendix C Glossary Physical disk Logical disk 3 On the next Select Partitions wizard page select the disk partition s who...

Page 29: ...switch set to Free space of the existing partitions you provide a small partition size If it is possible to create it using unallocated disk space the partition will be created this way the existing...

Page 30: ...ribed in 3 1 Creating A New Partition section Clicking Finish on the last wizard page allows Acronis Disk Director Suite to create a pending operation list for new partition creation these actions may...

Page 31: ...ing system partition free space below a certain value might cause operating system problems The Increase free space wizard will enable you to enlarge a partition using other partitions free space If t...

Page 32: ...of another partition is described above see 3 1 Creating A New Partition Selecting a partition to use to increase free space 4 On the next wizard page you will see the maximum size available for the s...

Page 33: ...a whole 3 3 Copying Partitions Having copied a partition you get the duplicate of all its data Partition copy can be used As a partition backup or rather as a data backup A system partition backup is...

Page 34: ...ion parameters will be created The page for selecting a disk location for partition copy You will have to select a copy location on one of the disks among existing partitions To make your selection cl...

Page 35: ...clicking after the PROGRAM H partition You can locate a copy anywhere on your disk s The copy partition wizard will automatically perform all necessary operations even if it has to resize or move othe...

Page 36: ...page and there is not enough unallocated disk space you will see an error message Error message showing not enough disk space for a partition copy In that case the wizard will prompt you to select a p...

Page 37: ...boot the partition s operating system at startup By copying a partition at the expense of existing partition free space Acronis Disk Director Suite can take the partition space to make sure that parti...

Page 38: ...reating partitions If there is unallocated space on a disk you can create a partition using manual disk operations Note that the Create partition wizard mentioned above can create a partition using bo...

Page 39: ...tion creation The new partition structure will be graphically represented in the Acronis Disk Director Suite main window Creating a partition in unallocated disk space in Windows 98 Me can change the...

Page 40: ...n the toolbar 3 Acronis Disk Director Suite will automatically compare the size of a copied partition and disk free space as shown in the Copy Partition window Free space available for copying Note th...

Page 41: ...ring data into the Unallocated space before Partition size and Unallocated space after fields 6 By clicking OK in the Copy Partition wizard you ll add the pending operation of partition copying and lo...

Page 42: ...you might have a special partition for a swap file If you move this partition closer to the beginning of a disk OS might work much faster with it Change partition configuration If you need to move a...

Page 43: ...s possible If there is not enough free space to copy a partition on a hard disk no unallocated space will be available for selection 4 Select free space to move the selected partition to 5 On the next...

Page 44: ...order of letters assigned to other partitions As a result some shortcuts might stop working A detailed discussion of partition letter assignment rules for various operating systems appears in 3 1 Crea...

Page 45: ...ize free space before the partition 2 Having pointed to the rectangle hold the left mouse button and move a partition as a whole until you get the necessary MB or GB amount in the Unallocated space be...

Page 46: ...in two moving the selected folders to the new partition and leaving the rest of the data on the old one The new partition will have the same file system This operation can also be used for creating an...

Page 47: ...n free space Please keep in mind that you are distributing not overall partition size but just free space at this step The program will automatically count how much space is necessary for the folders...

Page 48: ...ta from another partition will be added If you need to merge one partition with another 1 Select a partition to be merged to the target partition 2 Select Disk Merge or a similar item in the Operation...

Page 49: ...rtition 1 Select a partition to be explored 2 Select Disk Explore or a similar item in the Operations sidebar list or click Explore on the toolbar 3 The program displays a folder tree Now you can expl...

Page 50: ...tion labels are shown in the Explorer disk and folder tree WIN98 C WINXP D DATA E etc WIN98 WINXP and DATA are partition labels A partition label is shown in all application dialog boxes for opening a...

Page 51: ...r size the less disk space will be lost see A 9 2 FAT16 Table 3 2 The smaller the cluster size the bigger the file allocation table FAT The bigger the FAT the slower the operating system works with th...

Page 52: ...the switch to Delete partition and destroy data enter a number of passes for wiping Wiping unallocated disk space means multiple writing of special data to hard disk sectors Acronis Disk Director Suit...

Page 53: ...rs in 3 1 Creating A New Partition 4 1 11 Checking hard disk partitions for errors Acronis Disk Director Suite enables you to check hard disk partitions for file system errors Hard disk partitions sho...

Page 54: ...ead has to move less across the disk to read all file parts Acronis Disk Director Suite supports defragmentation in Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server only Windows 2000 has its own embedded disk defra...

Page 55: ...must be completely destroyed to avoid unauthorized access to it simply deleting an old file is not sufficient Windows tools do not guarantee data destruction Deleted files can be restored easily Forma...

Page 56: ...ut an entire disk as well If you need to clear the entire hard disk 1 Select a hard disk on the Tree View panel of Acronis Disk Director Suite Clear the current hard disk drive button becomes availabl...

Page 57: ...ons Additional hard disk partition operations include some rarely used but useful operations for converting partition file systems hiding and unhiding partitions setting active partitions changing roo...

Page 58: ...000 XP might result in problems running applications and opening files on the partition If it is a system or swap file partition it might cause OS boot problems A detailed discussion of partition lett...

Page 59: ...ct it from partition or the graphical representation context menu 3 Enter partition type Logical Primary in the Convert Partition window Convert partition window 4 By clicking OK you ll add a pending...

Page 60: ...ctive system partition will automatically make another partition active Note that the Advanced Hide sidebar item is changed to Advanced Unhide after you select a hidden partition from the list The par...

Page 61: ...Me can change the order of letters assigned to other partitions As a result some shortcuts might stop working A detailed discussion of partition letter assignment rules for various operating systems a...

Page 62: ...hange the order of letters assigned to other partitions As a result some shortcuts might stop working A detailed discussion of partition letter assignment rules for various operating systems appears i...

Page 63: ...space occupied by the file allocation table FAT and slow down file access If you need to change cluster size 1 Select a disk and partition from the list in the Acronis Disk Director Suite main window...

Page 64: ...Me only uses the partition type field when determining if it can support a partition Usually partition type is set during its creation depending on the file system to be used However you might need t...

Page 65: ...Linux Ext2 Ext3 In Linux Ext2 Ext3 the i node index descriptor is the main data structure describing files Each descriptor contains a file description including file type size data block pointers etc...

Page 66: ...tion context menu If you select a partition with another file system mentioned sidebar and context menu items will be unavailable 3 Enter the new amount of bytes per descriptor i node in the Change by...

Page 67: ...n window sidebar Using the respective main menu item While working in the Manual mode Using Advanced Recover item of the context menu by hovering a mouse pointer over Unallocated space and right click...

Page 68: ...y Expert will search unallocated space thoroughly either automatically or manually 5 1 Automatic Recovery You can recover deleted partitions automatically or manually To do so set the switch to the ne...

Page 69: ...eted partition s almost at once in a few seconds Partition s found are then added to the list in the Searching for Deleted Partitions window The search will however continue until the entire disk is s...

Page 70: ...dow shows a partition to recover as a part of hard disk partition structure marking it with an icon in the upper right corner of its rectangle A hard disk partition to be recovered A partition has bee...

Page 71: ...very mode The next Searching Method window enables you to select one of two deleted partition searching methods 1 Fast 2 Complete What s the difference Using the Fast search method Acronis Recovery Ex...

Page 72: ...efore it was deleted A deleted hard disk partition found by Acronis Recovery Expert Unlike in the automatic recovery mode you do not have to wait until the search for deleted hard disk partitions is f...

Page 73: ...t and recover only the partition you deleted by mistake Partitions are selected for recovery by clicking them Click the partition rectangle to select the deleted partition and continue recovery A dele...

Page 74: ...er to observe it yourself with the Acronis Disk Editor 6 2 The selection of the partition or a disk for editing Disk or partition data editing operations are only available in the Manual mode of Acron...

Page 75: ...rious modes Below the main window of the program is the view as partition table mode The main window in the view as partition table mode To make the information contained in this field sensible the cu...

Page 76: ...racters and go to a certain disk sector according to its absolute offset Help allows you to get help concerning the editor window or about the program s developer and version 6 4 Edit Hard Disks The E...

Page 77: ...rning about saving your changes Saving modified sector 6 5 Write Block to a File and Read from a File The Write to file and Read from file menu items allow you to save the selected block to a file or...

Page 78: ...item will result in opening the Read from file window In this window enter the file name and its path or locate a file by clicking the Browse button To insert file contents to a sector from the curren...

Page 79: ...sector FAT folder 6 7 Search The Search menu allows you to search a hard disk for some line and to go to a disk sector according to its absolute offset Search Menu Selecting the Search item in the sa...

Page 80: ...can search for the next line from the current position by selecting Find next item in the Search menu or by pressing F3 key You can go to the necessary sector according to its absolute offset by selec...

Page 81: ...in Acronis Disk Editor This list is shown closed and dropped down below The closed and dropped down list of encodings The list of encodings is intended for correct interpretation of hard disk sector c...

Page 82: ...fine different configurations for each copy 7 2 Starting the work After Acronis OS Selector is installed together with Acronis Disk Director Suite all operating systems that exist on the given PC will...

Page 83: ...will see a new icon in the operating systems area The left part of the window the sidebar contains the following sections also available in the main menu and customizable toolbar Operations This sect...

Page 84: ...the drive may prevent OS Selector from starting at bootup and force loading its own bootable program or OS We highly recommend that you set the system bootup sequence in BIOS so that the HDD will be t...

Page 85: ...e same operating system you are in at the moment the PC will reboot after your confirmation You can also boot the selected OS using The Boot button in the Operations section of the Main Window The Boo...

Page 86: ...in the context menu invoked by a right click 7 7 Setting operating system properties Acronis OS Selector automatically determines properties of all operating systems installed on a PC If needed you ca...

Page 87: ...ting systems compatible with OS 2 that were not automatically located by Acronis OS Selector Enable large disks support enables large disks support for Windows 98 Me operating systems Boot configurati...

Page 88: ...sk see details in 8 2 1 General information If you connect a live system HDD taken from another computer where it was the first disk to your computer where it becomes the second 3rd etc disk boot from...

Page 89: ...omatically determines system folders for all Windows operating systems System folders contain files required for an operating system to work properly Windows 98 Me NT utilizes Windows and Program File...

Page 90: ...ically Folders properties window Enable enable folder contents recovery at bootup Disable leave folder contents as is 7 7 6 Files This section allows you to specify the location of system files requir...

Page 91: ...is OS Selector automatically determines system files of any Windows versions and makes them Changeable You can change this option manually if needed For operating systems that use FAT16 FAT32 file sys...

Page 92: ...lso hide an operating system using the context menu invoked by a right click This will hide the selected OS from the list of available ones To unhide an operating system Select Show Hidden in the View...

Page 93: ...ete operation you can delete any operating system from the OS Selector boot menu and main window along with its shortcuts You can delete all Windows system folders from the hard disk along with deleti...

Page 94: ...ndows see 8 2 1 General information Then click Bootable Whatever OS location is selected you can set options of available partitions for example hide some of them These settings will be applied to the...

Page 95: ...ng it on main OS Copying an OS 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 system BO...

Page 96: ...etected Settings for the existing operation systems will be left intact No do not protect folders Acronis OS Selector will not enable folder protection when new operating systems are detected 7 14 2 S...

Page 97: ...ptions window 7 14 3 Display properties Acronis OS Selector can control monitor video modes before Windows is booted and the graphics card and monitor drivers are loaded Display properties window The...

Page 98: ...ration automatically and set the maximum available refresh rate The maximum rate that can be set manually is 150Hz 7 14 4 Passwords You can set change or remove Acronis OS Selector global passwords in...

Page 99: ...of input devices mouse etc in Acronis OS Selector boot menu Using the Default parameter the program automatically determines installed input devices If needed you can manually specify an input device...

Page 100: ...d in Windows 95 MS DOS 7 1 not a separate product but is included in Windows 98 MS DOS 8 0 not a separate product but is included in Windows Me All Windows 9x and Windows NT operating systems Windows...

Page 101: ...uration file NTDETECT COM initial hardware detector for more details see Appendix B Particularities of Operating System The main part of Windows OS is located in Windows or WINNT Program Files Documen...

Page 102: ...tup from the boot menu having inserted the disk with the OS distribution Once booted from a disk follow instructions to install the OS During installation the Windows bootable part will automatically...

Page 103: ...ystem could boot even if the first disk is damaged or removed However you may choose not to do it The new operating system will then boot from the first disk in spite of its system folders residing on...

Page 104: ...rsions If you need to Update an existing Windows version with a new copy of Windows 2000 XP select Yes update existing operating system In this case the New Operating System Wizard will automatically...

Page 105: ...d available for update In the list provided select an OS to update by replacing it with a new copy of Windows 2000 XP When a new OS is configured click Proceed to confirm operations selected If Acroni...

Page 106: ...loaded into memory Instead of supporting multiple file systems Lilo developers went a simpler more universal route a loader just keeps the core file location in its data structure created by the speci...

Page 107: ...here s no need to create any special properties for the new OS to hide or change status of any partitions After selecting the loader location you will have to remember that once placed into the MBR it...

Page 108: ...otable media using the Bootable Media Builder For this you will need a CD R RW blank several formatted diskettes the wizard will tell you the exact number or any other media your PC can boot from such...

Page 109: ...ts invoking Acronis OS Selector at bootup To solve this problem just reactivate Acronis OS Selector using a bootable disk To find more about components of other Acronis products see the respective use...

Page 110: ...apacity If you chose to create a bootable disk ISO image specify the ISO file name and the folder where to place it If you chose to save bootable data on PXE server specify the server and provide the...

Page 111: ...n the prefix and suffix portions is 512 bytes in size Both sides of each disk on the spindle are used to store data All tracks that have the same number on all the surfaces of all disks comprise a cyl...

Page 112: ...ifferent operating systems for example Windows 2000 XP and Linux Partitioning provides more effective disk space usage Partitioning enables you to separate system files from user data making personal...

Page 113: ...trol Panel whose disk management tools will let you delete and create partitions primary extended logical using free unallocated disk space or format a partition You cannot however change partition st...

Page 114: ...are accessible by most operating systems If you need several operating systems you should use logical partitions for booting purposes and leave primary partitions free A 7 Formatting Hard Disks Withi...

Page 115: ...2000 XP However there are many other file systems The Linux operating system which is now gaining popularity widely uses three file systems Ext2 is a file system for end users PCs Ext3 is the default...

Page 116: ...bytes 64 KB 512 bytes 64 KB File record table I node No No Dynamic Table 2 Linux file systems File system Ext2 Ext3 ReiserFS Operating systems Linux Linux Linux Max partition size 16 TB 16 TB 16 TB Ma...

Page 117: ...Usually the smallest possible cluster size is selected so that the resulting number of clusters is less than 65 526 The larger the partition size the larger the cluster has to be Most operating syste...

Page 118: ...NTFS data structures are special files Like the FAT NTFS uses clusters to store files but cluster size does not depend on partition size NTFS is a 64 bit file system It uses Unicode to store file name...

Page 119: ...MS DOS 5 x 6 x or PC DOS that has Windows 95 98 Me installed over it MS DOS or PC DOS that has Windows NT 2000 installed over it Acronis Disk Director Suite may not support some DOS versions for examp...

Page 120: ...ecomes a configuration file Letter assignment order differs for different DOS versions MS DOS and PC DOS assume the boot partition as the partition to which letter C has been assigned The CONFIG SYS c...

Page 121: ...eir boot partitions should be located in the first 2 gigabytes of a hard disk B 2 Windows 95 98 Me Under Windows 95 98 Me booting always starts with MS DOS thus everything concerning MS DOS 7 x 8 0 bo...

Page 122: ...Director Suite supports Windows NT versions 3 51 4 0 Windows 2000 and Windows XP it can detect the most common language versions B 3 2 Booting Peculiarities Operating systems based on Windows NT consi...

Page 123: ...the same names on a partition was added to Acronis Disk Director Suite Such folders are called system folders A system folder is moved to its place root folder only when the corresponding operating sy...

Page 124: ...l activation program called lilo and the process itself is called activation Since this program is run from Linux the features of the latter allow it to easily locate any file on a disk The disadvanta...

Page 125: ...oting an operating system If a boot manager is installed on a computer it is booted instead of an operating system Then the boot manager boots the user selected operating system itself Boot record The...

Page 126: ...escribes each file by a chain of numbers like serial numbers of a file s disk clusters The number of the first cluster of each file is stored in the folder Writing deleting and modifying files and fol...

Page 127: ...ly includes kernel drivers shell and system programs that are used for centralized hardware management and hiding the details of hardware management from the user and applications Operating system boo...

Page 128: ...s the smallest information unit on a disk that is transferred in a single read or write operation Usually a sector is 512 bytes in size A sector on a disk can be addressed two ways via the absolute nu...

Search results

Summary of Contents for DISK DIRECTOR SUITE 10.0

Reviews:

Related manuals for DISK DIRECTOR SUITE 10.0

Brands by name

Popular brands

ACRONIS DISK DIRECTOR SUITE 10.0, User Manual

Search results

Summary of Contents for DISK DIRECTOR SUITE 10.0

Reviews:

Related manuals for DISK DIRECTOR SUITE 10.0

Brands by name

Popular brands