DATA SHEET

Acronis Disk Director 11 Advanced Workstation Advanced Server
Maximize the performance of your servers or workstations with powerful partition and hard disk drive management utilities.
Acronis Disk Director 11 Advanced Server and Advanced Workstation provide powerful partition and hard disk drive management utilities to ensure your systems are running efficiently. Built upon award-winning technologies from Acronis, the products minimize downtime for maintenance and provide maximum server performance of your mission critical applications. Dynamically split, merge, resize, copy and move partitions within Windows, minimizing downtime. Perform advanced hard disk drive editing tasks, such as recovering important data areas of a hard drive; search and/or extract information that was lost due to different soft- and hardware failures or virus attack. All actions are put in a pending state until the servers are rebooted. Thus, you can make changes to servers during business hours and wait until after-hours to commit changes, minimizing user disruption. Moreover, these products are ideal companions to Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. Use Acronis Disk Director 11 Advanced Server and Advanced Workstation to manage volumes and maximize system performance, such as freeing up unused free space from one partition and transferring to another. Then, use Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 to backup an entire server or workstation, enabling recovery in minutes without any reinstallation of the applications, operating systems and server or workstation configurations. Main Features
New! Windows 7 and Windows 2008 and Windows 2008 R2 support Resize, move, copy, split, and merge volumes without losing your data Create, convert, copy and move volumes New! Dynamic Disk Support* New! GPT disk support New! Add or break mirrored volumes* New! Span volume across multiple physical disks New! Convert basic disk to GPT and vice versa Boot from CD/DVD or USB stick New! Clone disk to a replacement HDD Recover lost or deleted partitions No reboot during installation Works with Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 New! Repair RAID-5 column New! Remote management New! WinPE media
(*) for supported operating systems
View and manage disk properties

Feature

New! Manage all disks and volumes with extreme flexibility New! Dynamic Disk Support* New! GPT disk support New! Add, remove or break mirrored volumes* New! Span volume across multiple physical disks Ease of Use Command Line Interface Remote Management New! Convert basic disks to Dynamic Disks and vice versa New! Convert MBR disks to GPT and vice versa Boot from CD/DVD or USB stick New! Clone disks to a replacement HDD Disk Editor Recover lost or deleted partitions * For operating systems that support this feature

Description

Carry out a vast array of disk and volume management operations: Resize, move, copy, split and merge volumes without data loss or destruction Format and label volumes, assign volume letters and set volumes active Spread volumes over several disks Use with GPT disks to create volumes over 2TB and get additional disk reliability against possible data damage Make your basic or simple volume fault-tolerant in just one action by adding a mirror. If you need extra unallocated space on a disk containing one of the mirrors, remove a mirror Optimize your system by combining free space on different hard disk drives and get larger volume Intuitive interface and wizards guide you to get the most out of your system Create scripts for application tasks Powerful and easy-to-use tool for managing disks and volumes on local and remote machines Convert existing basic disks to Dynamic Disks to achieve additional disk reliability for data storage Why would you need to convert an MBR disk to a GPT basic disk? If you need to make a volume who size is over 2TB If you need more than four primary volumes on one disk Boot from a CD/DVD or USB stick and manage all your volumes The Disk Cloning wizard lets you replace the old basic MBR disk with a new one without reinstalling operating systems and applications Edit disk at the sector level Acronis Recovery Expert helps you to recover accidentally lost or deleted volumes on basic MBR disks

Supported Operating Systems
Acronis Disk Director 11 Advanced Server Windows Server 2003 and 2003 R2 (all editions, including SBS) Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 (all editions, including SBS)

Supported File Systems

FAT16, FAT32, NTFS Ext2, Ext3, ReiserFS3, Linux SWAP Special sector-by-sector support for copying and moving partitions of any other type
Acronis Disk Director 11 Advanced Workstation Windows XP (all editions) Windows Vista (all editions) Windows 7 (all editions)

Hardware Requirements

Boot Firmware Computer Processor System memory Screen Resolution Installation Disk Space Other hardware

Minimum Requirements

Bios-based** Modern processor, 800MHz or faster 512MB 800x600 pixels 2GB Mouse

Recommended

1GHz 32-bit or 64-bit X86 processor 1GB or more 1024x768 or higher
CD/DVD recording drive, or a flash drive, for bootable media creation
** Machines that are based on Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) are not supported
For additional information, please visit http://www.acronis.com/ Enterprise/SMB sales: Call +669-9749 OEM inquiries: Call +222-0920
Copyright 2000-2010 Acronis, Inc. All rights reserved. Acronis, Disk Director and the Acronis logo are trademarks of Acronis, Inc. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Other mentioned names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners and should be regarded as such. Technical changes and differences from the illustrations are reserved; errors are excepted. 2010-09

Volume operations.... 35 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 Creating a volume....35 Resizing a volume....37 Copying a volume....38 Moving a volume....39 Merging basic volumes...40 Formatting a volume....41 Deleting a volume....42 Splitting a volume....42 Changing a volume label....43
6.10 Changing a drive letter...44 6.11 Converting a primary volume to logical...44 6.12 Converting a logical volume to primary...45 6.13 Changing a partition type....45 6.14 Setting a volume active...46 6.15 Adding a mirror....46 6.16 Removing a mirror....47 6.17 Breaking a mirrored volume....48 6.18 Browsing a volume's content....48 6.19 Checking a volume for errors....48 6.20 Defragmenting a volume....49 6.21 Changing a cluster size....49 6.22 Changing a file system....50 6.23 Hiding a volume....51 6.24 Unhiding a volume....51 6.25 Repairing a RAID-5 volume....51 6.26 Specifying i-node density....Disk operations..... 54 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 Disk initialization.....54 Basic disk cloning....55 Disk conversion: MBR to GPT...56 Disk conversion: GPT to MBR...57 Disk conversion: basic to dynamic...58 Disk conversion: dynamic to basic...58 Changing a disk status: online to offline....59 Changing a disk status: offline to online....60 Importing foreign disks...60
7.10 Removing a missing disk....61 7.11 Cleaning up a disk....61
Tools.... 63 8.1 Acronis Bootable Media Builder....63
How to create bootable media....64 Working under bootable media.....68 8.1.1 8.1.2

8.2 8.3

Acronis Recovery Expert....70 Acronis Disk Editor....71
Starting work with Acronis Disk Editor....72 Main window, menu and controls....72 Editing disks....72 View.....74 Search.....74 Usage examples.....75
8.3.1 8.3.2 8.3.3 8.3.4 8.3.5 8.3.6
Working in the command-line mode... 79 9.1 9.2 Supported commands....79 Usage examples....81

Glossary.... 82

Introducing Acronis Disk Director 11 Advanced
Acronis Disk Director 11 Advanced is a powerful and easy-to-use tool for managing disks and volumes on local and remote machines. 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. Now, in addition to basic volumes, you can easily create dynamic volumes in Acronis Disk Director to:
Increase the volume size beyond the capacity of a single disk, by using a spanned volume Reduce access time to files, by using a striped volume Achieve fault tolerance, by using a mirrored and RAID-5 volumes*
New! Add, remove, or break mirrored volumes* Make your basic or simple volume fault-tolerant in just one action by adding a mirror. If you need extra unallocated space on a disk containing one of the mirrorsremove a mirror. Break a mirrored volume to get two independent simple volumes with initially identical content. New! Copy or move a volume of one type as a volume of another type Change the type of a volume when copying or moving it. For example, you can copy the contents of a mirrored volume to a spanned volume. New! Convert primary volumes to logical and vice versa Convert a primary volume to logical to create a fifth volume on a disk that currently has four primary volumes. New! Repair RAID-5 volumes Restore a RAID-5 volume performance by reconstructing the data of the failed member on another disk. New! Convert basic disks to dynamic and vice versa Convert the existing basic disks to dynamic to achieve additional disk reliability for data storage. New! Convert GPT disks to MBR and vice versa Change the partitioning scheme of your disk to the way you need it. New! Import foreign disks Make dynamic disks added from another machine accessible for the system. New! Changing a disk status: online to offline and vice versa* Change a disk status to offline in order to protect it from unintentional use. New! Disk cloning The Disk Cloning wizard lets you replace the old basic MBR disk with a new one without reinstalling operating systems and applications. It transfers all of the source disk data to a target disk. The source disk volumes can be cloned to the target disk "as is", or resized automatically according to the target disk size.

Types of dynamic volumes

The following are the types of dynamic volumes that are supported by Acronis Disk Director provided that they are supported by the operating system, as shown in Dynamic volume types support (p. 18).

Simple volume

A volume (p. 93) that consists of disk space from a single dynamic disk (p. 85). Physically, a simple volume can occupy more than one region of disk space, which can be logically perceived as a single contiguous region. When you extend a simple volume to another disk, the volume becomes a spanned volume (p. 92). When you add a mirror to a simple volume, the volume becomes a mirrored volume (p. 90).

Spanned volume

A volume that consists of disk space from two or more dynamic disks (p. 85), in portions that do not need to be equally-sized. A spanned volume can reside on up to 32 disks. Unlike mirrored (p. 90) and RAID-5 (p. 91) volumes, spanned volumes are not fault-tolerant. Unlike striped volumes (p. 92), spanned volumes do not provide faster data access.
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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. 90), 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.

Mirrored volume

A fault-tolerant volume whose data is duplicated on two physical disks (p. 90). Each of the two parts of a mirrored volume is called a mirror. All of the data on one disk is copied to another disk to provide data redundancy. If one of the hard disks fails, the data can still be accessed from the remaining hard disks. Volumes that can be mirrored include the system volume (p. 93) and a boot volume (p. 83). A mirrored volume is sometimes called a RAID-1 volume.
Note: No redundancy provided by the dynamic volumes architecture can replace the proper backup procedure. If you want to be sure of the safety of your data, the best policy is to combine both precautions.

RAID-5 volume

A fault-tolerant volume (p. 93) whose data is striped in equally-sized blocks across an array of three or more disks (p. 84). Fault tolerance is achieved by using parity, a calculated value that can be used to reconstruct data in case of a failure. Parity is also striped across the disk array. Parity is always stored on a different disk than the data itself. If one of the hard disks fails, the portion of the RAID-5 volume that was on that hard disk can be recreated from the remaining data and the parity. A RAID-5 volume has a higher volume-size-to-disk-space ratio than a mirrored volume. For example, suppose that you want to use 120 GB of disk space to create a fault-tolerant volume:

Letter (by default, the first free letter of the alphabet). Assign a drive letter to the volume to be able to locate files and folders on it. If the new volume is basic, specify whether it will be: Primary. Set the volume as Primary, if you plan to install an operating system on it. Mark the primary volume as Active, if you need the machine to start from this volume.
Logical. Set the volume as Logical, if it is intended for data storage. 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. 24). Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.

Resizing a volume

This operation extends a volumewhether basic or dynamicby taking unallocated space from one or more disks; or reduces a volume so that a portion of the volumes 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. Alternatively, you can choose to convert the disk to dynamic and use unallocated space from all dynamic disks on your machine. In the second case, the volume will become a simple or spanned volume. Resizing a volume from which the machine or an operating system starts. You can resize the system volume, a boot volume, or the active volume only when it is a basic volume.

To resize a volume

1. Select the volume that you want to resize, and then click Resize volume. 2. Specify the new size of the volume, by typing it or by moving the slider. 3. When resizing a basic volume:
To be able to use only unallocated space that is adjacent to the volume, click Leave the volume as basic. The volume will remain a basic volume. To be able to use unallocated space from all dynamic disks on the machine, click Convert the volume to simple/spanned. The volume will be converted to a simple or spanned volume, and the corresponding disk will become dynamic.
Note: This option is not available if the volume is the system volume, a boot volume, or the active volume.

Moving a volume

This operation moves a volume by creating a new volume, copying the original volumes 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. This is important if you are moving a volume from which Windows starts. 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. 37) 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.
For details about moving a volume from which the machine or a Windows operating system starts, see Moving system, boot, and active volumes later in this section.
Caution: Avoid moving a volume from which an operating system other than Windows, such as Linux, starts. Otherwise, that operating system may become unbootable.

To move a volume

1. Select the volume that you want to move, and then click Move volume. 2. Select the type that the new volume will have. The default type is that of the original volume. 3. Depending on the type of the new volume, specify one or more disks where you want to create the new volume:
4. Specify the size of the new volume. This size cannot be less than the size of data on the original volume. For a basic volume, you can increase its size only by taking unallocated space that is adjacent to it. 5. In the volume layout diagram at the bottom of the window, you can specify the space that the volume will occupy on each of the selected disks, by typing the sizes or by dragging the sliders. 6. Click Finish to add the pending volume moving 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. 24). Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.
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 insteadsee Basic disk cloning (p. 55).

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 volumefor example, as a security best practice. When you want to change the volumes file system to later store files more efficiently. To format a volume
1. Right-click the volume that you want to format, and then click Format. 2. In File system, select the file system that you want to create on the volume. The NTFS file system is recommended for most Windows operating systems.
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. 10). 3. In Cluster size, specify the cluster sizealso known as allocation unit sizefor 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. Optionally, in Volume label, type the volume label that you want to assign to the volume to better differentiate it from other volumes. The maximum number of characters in the volume label depends on the file system that you selectedsee Changing a volume label (p. 43). 5. Click OK to add the pending volume formatting 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. 24). Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.

More about cluster sizes

Using the default cluster size is normally the best option. Smaller cluster sizes allow for more efficient storage if the volume is to contain a vast number of very small files. Bigger cluster sizes make it possible for the volume to have a size beyond normal limits. For example, you can create a 4-GB volume with the FAT16 file system, by using a cluster size of 64 KB.
Important: Some programs do not work correctly with volumes whose file systems have big cluster sizes, such as a cluster size of 64 KB in the FAT16 and FAT32 file systems, and cluster sizes of 8 KB through 64 KB in the NTFS file system. For example, these programs may incorrectly calculate the total and available space on such volumes.

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.

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.
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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. Click OK to add the pending addition of a mirror to the volume 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. 24). Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.
Important! If this operation was performed with machine rebooting or by using bootable media, the dynamic volume will get the Failed redundancy status after booting into any edition of Windows 2003. To repair the dynamic volume, reactivate the underlying disks by using Windows Disk Management functionality see the Troubleshooting Disk Management article on the Microsoft Web site.

6.16 Removing a mirror

Mirrored volumes provide fault tolerance by storing two exact copies of datacalled mirrorson two different disks. Removing a mirror from a mirrored volume means converting that volume to a simple volume, thus losing fault tolerance. The space that was occupied by the removed mirror becomes unallocated space on the corresponding disk (provided that that disk is not missing). You may want to remove a mirror in the following cases:
When you need extra unallocated space on a disk containing one of the mirrors, at the expense of losing fault tolerance When a disk containing one of the mirrors becomes missingfor 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 itsee Add mirror (p. 46). You cannot remove a mirror when both disks containing the mirrored volume are missing.

Changing a cluster size of a volume affects the amount of free/used disk space. Smaller cluster sizes allow for more efficient storage of smaller files by reducing the amount of wasted disk space. Furthermore, larger files may become more fragmented across the volume, increasing the amount of time that is needed to access them. Bigger cluster sizes improve performance by decreasing the time to access to larger files. However, having a bigger cluster size wastes disk space if the typical size of the files stored on the volume is smaller than the cluster size.
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To change cluster size

1. Right-click the volume whose cluster size you need to change, and then click Change cluster size. 2. Select the required cluster size from the list. The default cluster size is marked in the list as (default). The default cluster size depends on the volume size and the type of the file system. For example, the default cluster size for up to 2-TB NTFS volumes is 4 KB.
Important: The program does not allow you to select a particular cluster size if, the free volume space will decrease to the point where the data will not fit on the volume. Some programs do not work correctly with volumes whose file systems have big cluster sizes, such as a cluster size of 64 KB in the FAT16 and FAT32 file systems, and cluster sizes of 8 KB through 64 KB in the NTFS file system. For example, these programs may incorrectly calculate the total and available space on such volumes. Acronis Disk Director displays warning messages, when you select such cluster sizes.
3. Click OK to add the pending cluster size changing 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. 24). Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.
6.22 Changing a file system
This operation lets you change the volume file systems of the following type:

As is information from the source disk is transferred to the target As is. So, if the target disk is the same size and even larger, it is possible to transfer all the information there exactly as it is stored at the source. When cloning to a larger target disk, the remaining space becomes unallocated. Use proportional volume resizing (for the supported file systems (p. 10)) recommended when the target disk is larger, or smaller than the source. The program will automatically increase or decrease the (if possible) size of the volumes with respect to the target disk size. Thus, no unallocated space appears on the target disk.
Note for smaller target disks: the program analyzes the target disk to establish whether its size will be sufficient to hold all the data from the source disk without any loss. If such transfer with proportional resizing of the source disk volumes is possible, then you will be allowed to proceed. If due to the size limitations safe transfer of all the source disk data to the target disk is impossible even with the proportional resizing of the volumes, then the Clone basic disk operation will be impossible and you will not be able to continue.
4. If you are about to clone a disk containing the system volume, pay attention to the Advanced options, described later in this section. 5. Click Finish to add the pending disk cloning operation The results of the pending operation are immediately displayed as if the operation had been performed.
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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 disks 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. After cloning the disk and copying the NT signature, you should remove one of the disks from the machine.
You have the following two alternatives to retain system bootability on the target disk volume:
Copy NT signature to provide the target disk with the source disk NT signature matched with the Registry keys also copied on the target disk. Leave NT signature to keep the old target disk signature and update the operating system according to the signature.
If you need to copy the NT signature:
1. Select the Copy NT signature check box. You receive the warning stating that you will have to remove one of the two hard disk drives from the machine. The Turn off the machine after the cloning operation check box is selected and disabled automatically. 2. Click Finish to add the pending operation. 3. Click Commit on the toolbar and then click Proceed in the Pending Operations window. 4. Wait until the task is finished. 5. Wait until the machine is turned off. 6. Disconnect either the source or the target hard disk drive from the machine. 7. Start up the machine.

When editing disks and volumes, you should be certain of your actions. You can easily violate a disks information integrity by making data inaccessible. Also, your machine operability may be severely affected (the operating system will stop loading, applications will stop running).
Starting work with Acronis Disk Editor
To start Acronis Disk Editor
1. Connect the console to the machine where Acronis Disk Director Agent is installed. 2. In the disk management area, right-click a disk or volume, and then click Edit. This will start Acronis Disk Editor, providing access to its operations. The difference between selecting the entire disk or selecting a volume is the following:
if you select the entire disk you will be able to view and edit data storage structures of the entire disk Partition table, File Allocation Table of all disk volumes, the root folder, data area. selecting a volume lets you view and edit only data storage structures of this volume File Allocation Table, the root folder and data area of the volume.
Main window, menu and controls
The main window displays the numbers of disk and sector where the internal program cursor is positioned. The menu of Acronis Disk Editor contains the following items:
Disk lets you browse properties of the selected disk. Edit lets you manipulate blocks of selected hard disk volumes; also lets you to save the content of a disk sector after editing. View lets you select a view mode for more convenient data presentation. By default, the main window of the program displays the selected volume or disk in the hexadecimal (Hex) mode. Search lets you search a volume (or a hard disk) for any line (or any sequence of characters) and go to a certain disk sector according to its absolute offset. Help lets you get help concerning the editor window, the programs manufacturer and version.

Using controls

While all the operations can be accessed from the menu, the most frequently used operations are available on the toolbar. You can access almost all of the program's main functions (or menu items) with the help of F1, F2, F10 keyboard shortcuts and combinations like Ctrl+O, Ctrl+F, Alt+P, etc. For example, the dialog window for searching volumes and/or hard disks for lines is performed by pressing the Ctrl+F key combination. You can go to a sector according its absolute offset by pressing Alt+P. You can switch between various main window view modes. For example, press F2 for the As Hex view mode, F6 for the As Partition Table view mode, F7 for the As Boot Sector view mode. There are other available shortcut keys. The list of encodings is used to interpret the hard disk sector content. Selecting the necessary encoding, will allow you to view the sector's content correctly interpreted in the right part of programs main window in the Hex mode.

Tip: You can create a selection right in the Write to file window: in the Size filed, specify the the number of bytes that will be selected from the current cursor position.
Reading a block from a file
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. Place the cursor to the necessary sector byte, and click Read from file. 2. In the Read from file window, click Browse and specify the file.
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3. Click OK. The file content will be inserted to a sector from the current cursor position. 4. Click Save sector (Ctrl+S) to save changes.
Information about disks and volumes in the Acronis Disk Editor window can be viewed and edited in several different modes. You can select the appropriate view mode with the help of the View menu. The editor offers seven view modes:
HEX (hexadecimal mode) Partition table FAT16 boot sector FAT32 boot sector FAT32 FS info sector NTFS boot sector FAT folder
The hexadecimal view mode is the main and the most universal. Other modes that represent some kind of patterns for viewing data let you work with decoded values of bytes or groups of bytes. You will be able to see the stages of disk data storage formation while the standard disk volume is being created and formatted and while files and folders are being created. Additionally, in the View menu, you can hide or show the status bar and toolbar.

Search

The Search menu lets you search a disk for a line and to go to a disk sector according to its absolute offset. A search line can be set both as char and as numeric (hexadecimal) values. During a search, you can ignore letter case as well as search for a given line at a given offset inside the sector. The disk data is interpreted according to the encoding selected. If you selected a search mode without a matching case letter, both the case and elements above the characters will be ignored. After the search process is finished, the current position will be moved to where a line was found, or will remain the same if no lines were found. You can search for the next line by pressing the F3 key. You can go to the necessary sector according to its absolute offset, by selecting the Go to menu item (or by pressing the Alt+P key combination). The transition is performed by entering an absolute sector offset, or by entering cylinder, head and sector numbers. The listed parameters are bound by this expression: (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).

A physical device for accessing information on a disk (p. 84). Examples of drives include hard disk drives (p. 88) and floppy disk drives.

Drive letter

See Volume letter (p. 94).

Dynamic disk

A hard disk that is managed by Logical Disk Manager (LDM), which is available in Windows starting with Windows 2000. Use of LDM helps to flexibly allocate volumes on a disk for fault tolerance, better performance or larger volume size. A dynamic disk can use either the master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition table (GPT) partitioning scheme (p. 90). Each dynamic disk has a hidden database where the LDM stores the configuration of all dynamic volumes existing in the disk group, which makes for better storage reliability. On an MBR disk, this database occupies the last 1 MB of the disk. On a GPT disk, Windows creates the dedicated LDM Metadata partition, taking space from the Microsoft Reserved Partition (MSR.)

Disk 1

LDM database

Disk 2

Protecti GPT ve MBR
Microsoft Reserved Partition (MSR)
LDM database LDM Metadata partition 1 MB

1 MB GPT

A dynamic MBR disk (Disk 1) and a dynamic GPT disk (Disk 2).
For more information about dynamic disks please refer to the following Microsoft knowledge base articles: 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. For example, you can:
Increase the volume size beyond the capacity of a single disk, by using a spanned volume Reduce access time to files, by using a striped volume Achieve fault tolerance, by using a mirrored volume

Physical disk

A disk (p. 84) that is physically a separate device. Thus, floppy disks, hard disks and CD-ROMs are physical disks.

Primary partition

See Primary volume (p. 91).

Primary volume

A volume which is located on a portion of a basic disk (p. 82) and works as if it were on a separate hard disk. Primary volumes often store files that are necessary to start the machine or an operating system. Many operating systems can start only from a primary volume. The number of primary volumes on the disk is limited and depends on the partitioning scheme (p. 90). A primary volume is also called a primary partition.

Root folder

The folder (p. 87) where the folder tree of a file system (p. 87) begins. Starting from the root folder, you can uniquely describe the file (p. 86) position in the folder tree by sequentially naming all the intermediate nested foldersfor 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.

Sector

The smallest information unit on a disk (p. 84) that is transferred in a single read or write operation. Usually, a sector is 512 bytes in size.

Stripe

Each of the several equally-sized portions of disk space that make up a striped volume (p. 92) or a RAID-5 volume (p. 91). Each stripe occupies a separate hard disk. A striped volume consists of two or more stripes. A RAID-5 volume consists of three or more stripes.

Swap file

A file (p. 86) that is used by an operating system to store data that does not fit in the physical memory of the machine.
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Use of the swap files enables more programs to run than would otherwise be allowed by the memory limitations. The operating system unloads currently unneeded data to the swap file, and loads needed data from the swap file into memory. A swap file is also called a paging file.

System folder

A folder that contains files that are necessary for an operating system to work. Examples of system folders for Windows operating systems are Program Files and Windows.
The volume which contains files that are necessary for any of the installed Windows operating systems to start. Examples of such files are: Boot.ini, Ntdetect.com, and Ntldr If only one Windows operating system is installed on your machine, the system volume is usually the same as the boot volume (p. 83). If more than one Windows operating system is installed on your machine, each of these operating systems normally has its own boot volume, whereas there is still only one system volume. In terms of volume type, the system volume can be a primary volume on a basic disk, or a simple volume on a dynamic disk. See also boot volume (p. 83).

Any one of the concentric circles to which a hard disk (p. 88) is divided. Information from one track can be accessed without moving the magnetic head.

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. 87) on a volume.

Volume

An independent area of storage on a hard disk (p. 88). Typically, a volume contains a file system (p. 87), which is used to store files and folders.
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A disk can store more than one volume. Some volumes, such as spanned volumes (p. 92), can reside on more than one disk.

Volume label

An optional name that can be assigned to a volume (p. 93) to simplify its identification by the user. The length of a volume label depends on the volumes file system (p. 87). For example, the NTFS file system allows volume labels of up to 32 characters. Some file systems, such as FAT16 and FAT32, do not allow certain characters in a volume labelfor example, a colon (:) or a quotation mark (").

Volume letter

A letter, such as C, that a Windows operating system assigns to a volume to locate files and folders that are stored on it. A volume letter is usually assigned when you format the volume. It can be assigned, changed, or removed later without affecting the volumes data. A volume letter is also called a drive letter.

Volume type

The type of volume, which is determined by the volume structure and by the type of disk on which the volume resides. The following is the list of volume types with short descriptions:
Basic volume (p. 82): A volume on a basic disk. Can be one of the following types:
Primary volume (p. 91): Can store information needed to start the machine or an operating system Logical volume (p. 88): Usually stores user files and operation system data
Dynamic volume (p. 86): A volume on one or more dynamic disks. Can be one of the following types:
Simple volume (p. 92): Occupies a single disk. Spanned volume (p. 92): Occupies two or more disks in arbitrarily-sized portions. Striped volume (p. 92): Occupies two or more disks in equally-sized portions. Can provide faster data access. Mirrored volume (p. 90): Occupies two disks in two identical portions (mirrors). Faulttolerant. RAID-5 volume (p. 91): Occupies three or more disks in equally-sized portions. Fault-tolerant.