Acronis TrueImage Deluxe
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Operating system installation
is a process during which its system folders are
created, system files are copied and boot sector are created.
Partition.
An independent area on a hard disk where a file system can be
located. A partition can be either primary or logical, depending on its position
in the partition structure. One of the primary partitions of a hard disk may be
active. A partition has the following attributes: type, beginning and size.
Some partition managing software and boot managers allow hiding
partitions. Information about partitions is stored in the partition table.
Partition structure.
All the partitions on a hard disk make a tree with the root
in the MBR partition table. Many operating systems and programs assume
that any partition table, but MBR, may contain not more than one partition
entry and one table entry, and it simplifies the partition structure greatly – all
the logical partitions form one chain.
Partition table.
It is the table that contains the information about partitions
and links to other partition tables. A partition table cannot have more than
four entries. The main partition table is located in the hard disk MBR. Other
partition tables are called extended. Partition tables are usually stored in the
first sector of a cylinder.
Partitioning.
The process of creating the partition logical structure on a hard
disk. Partitioning is usually done with programs like FDISK.
Primary partition.
The partition, information about which is contained in the
MBR partition table. The majority of operating systems can be booted only
from the primary partition of the first hard disk, and the number of primary
partitions is limited.
Physical disk.
A disk that is physically a separate device. Thus, a floppy disk,
hard disk, CD-ROM, and DVD drives are considered physical disks.
Root folder.
The folder where the folder tree of a file system begins. Starting
from the root folder one can uniquely describe the file position on the folder
tree by sequentially naming all the intermediate nested folders, e.g.:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32.VXD. Here the WINDOWS folder is a subfolder
of the root folder, SYSTEM folder – of the WINDOWS folder, and the
VMM32.VXD file is located in the SYSTEM folder.
Sector.
It is the minimal information unit on a disk that is transferred in single
read or write operation. Usually a sector is 512 bytes large. A sector on a
disk can be addressed two ways: via the absolute number or via cylinder,
head, and sector number on a track.
Status.
A flag that shows if a partition is active. This flag is stored in the
partition table and has no meaning for logical partitions.
