Acronis Disk Director 11 User Manual

7/30/2019 Acronis Disk Director 11 User Manual

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User's Guide


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DOC UME NTATION IS PR OVIDE D "AS IS " AND ALL E XP R E S S OR IMPL IE D C ONDIT IONS ,R E P R E SE NTATIONS AND WARR ANTIES , INCL UDING ANY IMPL IED WARR ANTY OF ME R C HANTABIL IT

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the lates t up-to-da te lis t of the third party code a nd the as soc iated license terms used with the

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Table of contents

1 / , .........................................................................5

2 Ins tallation and upgrade........................................................................................................7

2.1 Hardware requirements............................................................................................................7

2.2 S upported operating sys tems.................................................................................................... 7

2.3 S upported file sys tems..............................................................................................................7

2.4 S upported media.......................................................................................................................82.5 Installing Ac ronis D isk Director.................................................................................................. 8

2.6 Installing Ac ronis O S S elector.................................................................................................... 8

2.7 Updating Ac ronis D isk D irector.................................................................................................. 9

2.8 R emoving Ac ronis D isk Director................................................................................................9

2.9 Upg rading Ac ronis D isk D irector................................................................................................9

2.10 D emo vers ion information...................................................................................................... ...92.11 T echnical S upport....................................................................................................................10

3 Bas ic concepts.....................................................................................................................11

3.1 B as ic and dynamic disks...........................................................................................................11

3.2 T ypes of bas ic volumes............................................................................................................11

3.3 T ypes of dynamic volumes......................................................................................................12

3.4 Ac tive, sys tem, and boot volumes...........................................................................................13

3.5 D ynamic volume types support...............................................................................................13

3.6 Volume alignment in disks with a 4-KB sector size ..................................................................14

4 G etting started....................................................................................................................16

4.1 P reca utions..............................................................................................................................16

4.2 User privileges ..... ...... ..... ...... ..... ..............................................................................................16

4.3 R unning Ac ronis D isk D irector.................................................................................................16

4.4 Ac ronis D isk Director main window.........................................................................................17

4.5 D isk and volume information..................................................................................................18

4.5.1 Disk statuses..................................................................................................................................................184 5 2 Volume statuses 19


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5 Volume operations.............................................................................................................. 25

5.1 C reating a volume....................................................................................................................25

5.2 R esizing a volume....................................................................................................................27

5.3 C opying a volume....................................................................................................................28

5.4 Moving a volume..... ...... ..... ...... ...... .........................................................................................28

5.5 Merging bas ic volumes............................................................................................................30

5.6 F ormatting a volume...... ..... ...... ...... ...... ..................................................................................30

5.7 D eleting a volume....................................................................................................................31

5.8 S plitting a bas ic volume...........................................................................................................31

5.9 C hanging a volume label..........................................................................................................32

5.10 C hanging a drive letter ............................................................................................................33

5.11 C onverting a primary volume to logical...................................................................................33

5.12 C onverting a logica l volume to primary...................................................................................34

5.13 C hang ing a partition type................................................................................................... .....34

5.14 S etting a volume ac tive............................................................................................................35

5.15 Adding a mirror........................................................................................................................35

5.16 R emoving a mirror...................................................................................................................36

5.17 B reaking a mirrored volume....................................................................................................36

5.18 B rows ing a volume's content...................................................................................................37

5.19 C hecking a volume for errors...................................................................................................37

5.20 D efragme nting a volume................................................................................................... ......37

5.21 C hanging a cluster size.............................................................................................................38

5.22 C hanging a file system.............................................................................................................38

5.2 3 Hiding a volume..... ...... ..... ...... ...... ...........................................................................................39

5.24 Unhiding a volume...................................................................................................................39

5.25 S pecifying i-node dens ity..... ...... ...... ...... ...... ...................................................................... ......40

6 Disk operations ....................................................................................................................41

6.1 D isk initialization..... ...... ..... ...... ..... ...........................................................................................41

6.2 B as ic disk cloning.....................................................................................................................41

6.3 D isk conversion: MB R to G P T..................................................................................................43


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7 Tools ................................................................................................................................... 49

7.1 Ac ronis B ootable Media B uilder ..............................................................................................49

7.1.1 How to create bootable media....................................................................................................................507.1.2 Working under bootable media...................................................................................................................54

7.2 Ac ronis R ecovery E xpert..........................................................................................................56

8 Acronis O S S elector.............................................................................................................. 58

8.1.1 S tarting the work........................ ...................................................................................................................588.1.2 S etting the boot menu.................................................................................................................................. 598.1.3 Operations.....................................................................................................................................................59

8.1.4 E diting operating sys tems.............................................................................................................................638.1.5 Detecting operating systems........................................................................................................................658.1.6 S etting Acronis O S S elector options.............................................................................................................658.1.7 Installing and using several operating systems on a single machine........................................................67

8.2 Ac ronis D isk E ditor...................................................................................................................73

8.2.1 S tarting work with Acronis D isk E ditor........................................................................................................738.2.2 Main window, menu and controls...............................................................................................................748.2.3 E diting disks.......................... .........................................................................................................................74

8.2.4 View................................................................................................................................................................758.2.5 S earch......................... ....................................................................................................................................768.2.6 Usa ge examples.............................................................................................................................................76

9 G loss ary..............................................................................................................................81


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1 , Q W U R G X F L Q J $ F U R Q L V ' L V N -to-use tool for manag ing disks and volumes. With a

comprehensive set of operations, youca n organize your hard disk and volume configuration for

optimal performance, while keeping your data safe.

Key features

Ac ronis D isk D irector offers ma ny features including:

C reate both basic and dynamic volumesT he handy C reate V olume wizard has been improved to support dynamic volumes creation. Now,

in addition to bas ic volumes, you c an ea s ily create dynamic volumes in Acronis D isk D irector to:

Increase the volume size beyond the capacity of a single disk, by using a spanned volume R educe acc es s time tofiles, by using a striped volume Achieve fault tolerance, by using a mirrored volume *

Add, remove, or break mirrored volumes*Make your bas ic or simple volume fault-tolerant in just one action by adding a mirror. If you need

extra unallocated space on adisk containing one of the mirrorsremove a mirror. Break a

mirrored volume to get two independent s imple volumes with initially identica l content.

C opy or move a volume of one type as a volume of another typeC hange the type of a volume when copying or moving it. F or example, you c an c opy the contents

of a mirrored volume to a spanned volume.

C onvert primary volumes to logical and vice versaC onvert a primary volume to logical to create a fifth volume on a disk that currently has four

primary volumes .

C onvert bas ic disks to dynamic and vice versaC onvert the existing bas ic disks to dynamic to achieve additional disk reliability for data s torage.

C onvert G P T disks to MBR and vice versaC hange the partitioning sc heme of your disk the way you need it.

Import foreign disksMake dynamic disks added from another machine accessible for the system.

C hanging a disk status: online to offline and vice versa*C hang e a disk status to offline in order to protect it from unintentional us e.


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D elete volumes New! C hange file systems New! C lean up disks New! Hide/unhide volumes New! S pecify i-node density New! C hange a c luster size E xplore volume data, even on L inux volumes before performing operations P review changes made in disk a nd volume layout before a pplying them Browse through the detailed information about all hard disks, volumes and file systems

Acronis R ecovery E xpertHe lps you to recover accidentally lost or deleted volumes on bas ic MB R disks .

Acronis Bootable Media BuilderNow, you can c reate bootable media bas ed both on WinP E and L inux to use A cronis Disk D irector

on bare metal or outside of an operating system.

Acronis O S S electorE as y-to-us e boot manager that allows several operating systems on a single machine and lets you

create different configurations for any installed operating system, including Windows 7.

New! Ac ronis D isk E ditorA professional tool that performs a variety of actions on a hard disk.

L ogE xa mine information about disk a nd volume operations , including reas ons for failure, if any .

* F or the operating sys tems that support suc h functionality.


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2 Installation and upgradeT his s ection answers questions that might arise before the productinstallation and guides you

through the installation and upgrade of Acronis Disk Director.

In this section

Ha rdware requirements.............................................................................7

S upported operating sys tems.................................................................... 7

S upported file s ys tems...............................................................................7S upported media........................................................................................8

Installing Acronis Disk Director.................................................................. 8

Installing A cronis O S S elector.................................................................... 8

Updating Ac ronis D isk D irector.................................................................. 9

R emoving Ac ronis D isk Director................................................................. 9

Upgrading A cronis D isk D irector................................................................9

Demo version information.........................................................................9

Tec hnical S upport....................................................................................10

2.1 Hardware requirementsThe table below lists the minimum and recommended hardware requirements to install and run

Acronis Disk Director.

Item Minimum

requirements

Recommended

B oot firmware B IO S-based*

C omputer processor Modern processor,

800 MHz or faster

1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or

64-bit (x64)

processor

S ystem memory 256 MB 512 MB or more

S c reen res olution 800*600 pix els 1024*768 pix els or

higher

Installation disk s pace 150 MB

O ther hardware A mouse A C D/D VD recording

drive, or a flash drive

for bootable media


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2.3 Supported file systemsAc ronis D isk D irector supports the following file systems for performing operations:

FAT16 FAT32 N T F S E xt2 E xt3 R eiser3 L inux S WAPThe operations resulting in a change of volume sizethat is: C reate(p. 25), R es ize(p. 27), C opy(p.

28), Move (p. 28), Merge (p. 30), S plit(p. 31)are not available for the XF S , R eiser4, HP F S and J F S file

systems.

2.4

Supported media Ha rd disk drives (HD D ) and solid-state drives (S S D) S upport for IDE , S C S I and S AT A interfaces C D-R /R W, D VD-R /R W, D VD +R (including double-layer DVD+R), DVD+RW, DVD-R AM, BD-R , BD-R E

for bootable media creation*

US B 1.1 / 2.0 / 3.0, F ireWire (IE E E-1394) hard disk drives P C card storag e devices* B urned rewritabledisc s ca nnot be read in L inux without a kernel patch.

2.5 Installing Acronis Disk DirectorTo install Acronis Disk Director 11

1. If you have the previous version of Acronis Disk Director, remove it before proceeding with theinstallation of Acronis D isk D irector 11.

2. R un the s etup file of Acronis D isk D irector 11.3. C lickInstall Acronis Disk Director.4. Ac cept the terms of the license a greement.5. T ype in your licens e key . S kip this s tep if you want to eva luate thedemo produc t vers ion(p. 9).6 Select whether you want to install the program for all users on this machine or for the current


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D uring the installation of Ac ronis O S S elector, the hidden s ys tem folder BO O TWIZ will be created on

your machine to keep the program loader. Ac ronis O S S elector will also c opy operating system files

found on your machine into this folder to avoid problems during the booting process and to simplifyadding a new operating system in the future.

Ac ronis O S S elector ca n be installed in theTypicalor C ustommode.

DuringTypicalinstallation, the BOOTWIZ folder will be created in the system hard disk volume that

contains the Windows files and folders.

Using theC ustominstallation option, you will be able to s elect the loca tion of the B O O T WIZ folder.

This might come in handy when a system volume is a cc identally destroyed or damaged. In that cas e,you will be able to access the Acronis O S S elector boot menu even if the sys tem volume is

unavailable.

2.7 Updating Acronis Disk DirectorTo update Acronis Disk Director 11

1.

Download the latest product update from the official Acronis web site.2. R un the A cronis D isk D irector setup file.3. C lickUpdate/R emove Ac ronis D isk Direc tor.4. S electUpdate.5. P roceed with the upda te.

2.8 Removing Acronis Disk DirectorTo remove Acronis Disk Director

1. D epending on the operating sys tem running, do either of the following: for operating systems starting from Windows Vista selectS tart-> C omputer-> Uninstall or

change a program, then selectAcronis Disk Directorand clickUninstall.

for operating systems older than Windows Vista selectC ontrol Pa nel-> Add or removeprograms, then selectAcronis Disk Directorand clickRemove.

2. F ollow the instructions on the s creen. Ac ronis Disk D irec tor will be completely removed alongwith Ac ronis O S S elector.To remove Acronis O S S elector only, selectS tart-> All Programs-> Acronis -> Disk Director-> Install

Acronis O S S elector. Then selectUninstall Acronis OS S electorin the installation program window

and follow the prog ram ins tructions .


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Upgrading from the demo version of Acronis Disk Director 11

If you already have thedemo vers ion(p. 9) of Ac ronis D isk D irector 11 installed and want to upgrade

it to a full version:

1. R un Acronis Dis k D irector.2. S electHelp > E nter license keyfrom the top menu, and then type in your license key for Acronis

Disk Director.

2.10 Demo version informationThe demo version of Acronis Disk Director is fully functional, except for the following limitations:

All volume operations c an be performed on volumes whos e initial and res ulting s ize is not largerthan 100 MB. Operations on volumes whose size is largerthan 100 MB cannot be committed.

The following disk operations can be committed only if the total size of all volumes on the disk isnot larger than 100MB:

MBR to G P T(p. 43) andvice versa(p. 44) disk conversion. B as ic to dynamic(p. 44) andvice versa(p. 45) disk conversion. C lone basic disk(p. 41).

2.11 Technical SupportMaintenance and S upport P rogram

If you need as s istance with your Acronis product, please go to http://www.acronis.com/support/

P roduct Updates

Y ou ca n download the lates t updates for all your regis tered Acronis s oftware products from our

website at any time after logging into yourAccount(https://www.acronis.com/my) and registering

the product. S eeR egistering Acronis P roducts at the Webs ite(http://kb.acronis.com/content/4834)

and Acronis Website User G uide(http://kb.acronis.com/content/8128).


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3 Basic conceptsThis 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 th is sectionBasic and dynamic disks...........................................................................11

T ypes of basic volumes............................................................................11

Types of dynamic volumes....................................................................... 12

Ac tive, s ys tem, and boot volumes...........................................................13

Dynamic volume types support...............................................................13

Volume alignment in disks with a 4-KB sector siz e.................................. 14

3.1 Basic and dynamic disksE ac h disk on your mac hine ca n be one of two types : bas ic or dynamic.

Bas ic disks

This is the type of disk that most computers originally have.

Basic disks can normally be used by any operating system, including any version of Windows.

A bas ic disk ca nstore one or more volumescalled basic volumes . A bas ic volume cannot occupy

more than one disk.

When to use basic disks:

On a machine that has only one hard disk drive O n a mac hine that runs an older Windows operating s ys tem, or an operating sys tem otherthan

Windows

B y using A cronis D isk D irector, you canconvert a basic disk to a dynamic disk(p. 44).

Dynamic disks

These disks provide a greater functionality as compared to basic disks.


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B y using A cronis D isk D irector, you canconvert a dynamic disk to a basic disk(p. 45). Y ou may need

to do so, for example, to install an operating system other than Windows on that disk.

C onverting a dyna mic disk to bas ic may require deleting some volumes on it, such as volumes that

occ upy more than one disk.

3.2 Types of basic volumesA bas ic disk c an s tore two types of volumes: primary volumes a nd logical volumes.

The maindifference between a primary volume and a logical volume is that a primary volume can beused as the system or active volumethat is, a volume from which the machine or its Windows

operating s ys tems start.

On each bas icGPT(p. 87) disk, you c an c reate up to 128 primary volumes. T he max imum volume s ize

on a GP T disk is 16 exabytes.

Unlike basic G P T disks , on each basicMBR (p. 88) disk, you can create either up to four primary

volumes, or up to three primary volumesplus a n unlimited number of logical volumes. T he ma ximum

volume size on an MBR disk is 2 terabytes.

If you are not planning to use more than four volumes on the disk, all volumes can be primary

volumes. O therwise, you can leave the active volume and the system volume as primary volumes,

and then create as many logical volumes as required.

If the disk already has four primary volumes and you need to create a fifth volume, first convert one

of the volumesbut not the system or active volumeto a logical volume, as desc ribed in

C onverting a primary volume to logica l(p. 33), and then create a new logical volume.

3.3 Types of dynamic volumesT he following are the types of dynamic volumes that are supported by Ac ronis D isk D irector

provided that they a re supported by the operating s ys tem, a s shown inDynamic volume types

support(p.13).

S imple volumeA volume (p. 92) that consists of disk space from a singledyna mic dis k(p. 84).

P hys ically, a simple volume ca n occupy more than one region of disk s pace, which can be logica lly

perceived as a single contiguous region.


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S triped volume

A volume that res ides on two or more dynamic disks and whose da ta is evenly dis tributed a cross

equally-sized portions of disk s pac e (c alled stripes) on those dis ks .

Ac cess to data on s triped volumes is usua lly fas ter than on other types of dynamic volumes, because

it can be performed simultaneously on multiple hard disks.

Unlike amirrored volume(p. 88), a striped volume does not contain redundant information, so it is

not fault-tolerant.

A striped volume isalso known as a R AID-0 volume.

Mirrored volume

A fault-tolerant volume whos e data is duplicated on twophys ica l disks(p. 90).

E ac h of the two parts of a mirrored volume is ca lled 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 thesys tem volume(p. 91) and aboot volume(p. 82).

A mirrored volume is s ometimes c alled a R AID-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.

3.4 Active, system, and boot volumesS ome volumes on the disks of your machine contain information that is nec es sary for the ma chine to

start and for a particular operating sys tem to run. E ach suc h volume is ca lled a ctive, s ys tem, or boot,

depending on its func tion.

If only one Windows operating system is installed on your machine, a single volume is often the

active, system, and boot volume at the same time.

Because of their special role, you should use extra caution when performing operations withthese

volumes. S ome operations with these volumes ha ve limitations as compared to ordinary volumes.

Ac tive volume

This is the volume from which the machine starts after you switch it on.


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S ystem volume

This is the volume from which any of the installed Windows operating s ys tems startseven if more

than one is installed.

T he s ys tem volume contains files that are neces sary to s tart Windows, s uch a s boot.ini and N tldr.

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.

A boot volume contains folders such as the P rogramF iles folder and the Windows folder.

Note:The notions of system volume and boot volume apply only to Windows operating systems.

3.5 Dynamic volume types supportThe table below lists the operating systems that support certain dynamic volume types.

Simple Spanned Striped MirroredWindows XP Home - - - -

Windows XP Professional + + + -

Windows X P P rofess ional x64 + + + -

Windows V ista H ome Bas ic + + + -

Windows Vista Home Premium + + + -

Windows Vista B usiness + + + -

Windows Vista Ultimate + + + -

Windows 7 S tarter + + + -

Windows 7 HomePremium + + + -

Windows 7 Professional + + + +

Windows 7 Ultimate + + + +

3.6 Volume alignment in disks with a 4-KB sector size


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What is the caus e of misalignment

All Windows operating s ys tems earlier than V ista use a factor of 512 bytes to create volume clusters.

T he volume s tart is a ligned to 512-byte s ectors. A lso, thes e operating s ys tems use the

C ylinder/Hea d/S ector (C HS ) address ing sc heme. Volumes created with this sc heme are aligned by

cylinders/tracks of the disk.

Us ually, a track c onsis ts of 63 physical sectors. S ince the first track is reserved for the mas ter boot

record (MBR ) and other service purposes, the first volume starts from the beginning of the second

track of the disk. T herefore, volumes aligned by 63 sectors are not aligned with 4-KB sectors: 63

sectors by 512 bytes do not match with the integer number of 4-KB sectors.

Thus,the first created volume and all of the following volumes on the hard disk drive will be

misaligned.

Why misalignment is an important issue for hard disk drives

When a single bit of data is changed, the operating system entirely overwrites the cluster that

contains the c hanged data. B ut if misalignment occurs, the clus ter will overlap more phys ical s ectors

than it would have occ upied if aligned. A s a res ult, more phys ical sectors need to be eras ed and

rewritten each time data changes.

The redundant read/write operations noticeably s low down the disk speed a nd overall sys tem

performance.

T he sa me is true for S S D drives that have a 4-KB or larger sec tor (memory page) s ize. F or S S D drives

misa lignment decreas es not only sys tem performance, but also drive lifetime. S S D memory cells are

des igned for a certain a mount of read/write operations . T herefore, redundant read/write operations

lead to early degradation of the S S D drive.

How to avoid volume misalignment

The latest operating systems, starting from Windows Vista, already s upport the new s ector s ize.

T hus, volumes created with thes e operating sys tems will be properly a ligned.

Many hard disk drive manufacturers supply their modern drives with controllers that can shift

address ing offse t to one s ector (63 s ectorbecomes 64 sector), so volumes will appear aligned.

How to work with 4-KB sector size disks using Acronis Disk D irector

S uppose that you added a new 4-KB sector siz e hard disk drive with to a mac hine that is running

Windows X P only. T here a re no volumes on this drive yet. If you start creating volumes on this disk

using Windows X P , you may experience some s lowdown of the sy stem performance while ac ces sing


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After the volumes are created, you can perform other operations with them (including changing their

size) under any disk layout.

How to fix volume misalignment using Acronis Disk Director

S uppose that you have already created bas ic volumes ona disk with a 4-KB sector size, using

Windows X P . Volumes a lready c ontain data. T o align the misa ligned volumes on the disk us ing

Ac ronis D isk D irector, c lone this disk to another and then clone it backseeDisk cloning(p. 41). After

cloning, Acronis Disk Director shifts the first volume start with 1MB offset, all the disk volumes will be

aligned properly.


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4 Getting startedAfter reading this section, you will know how to run and use Acronis Disk Director, what precautionsyou should take, and how to perform the most common tasks you might need.

In this section

P recautions..............................................................................................16

Us er privileges..........................................................................................16

R unning Ac ronis D isk Director ................................................................. 16Acronis Disk Director main window.........................................................17

Disk and volume information................................................................... 18

Disk layout................................................................................................19

P erforming operations.............................................................................20

Log............................................................................................................21

C ollecting s ys tem information................................................................. 23

How to ...................................................................................................... 23

4.1 PrecautionsTo avoid any possible disk and volume structure damage or data loss, please take all necessary

precautions and follow these simple rules:

1. B ac k up the disk whose volumes will be created or manag ed. H aving your most important databacked up to another hard disk or C D will allow you to work on disk volumes be ing reas sured

that your data is safe.Acronis has an extremely effec tive comprehe ns ive data backup and rec overy s olution Acronis T rue

Image. It creates a data or disk backup copy stored in a compressed archive file that can be restored in case

of an acc ident.

2. C heck volumes(p. 37) to make sure they are fully functional and do not contain any bad sectorsor file system errors.

3. Do not perform any disk/volume operations whilerunning other s oftware that has low-level diskaccess. Acronis Disk Director must obtain exclusive access to the target disk/volume. This meansno other disk manageme nt utilities (s uch a s the Windows D isk Manag ement utility) can a cc es s it

at that time. Ifyou receive a messag e s tating that the disk/volume cannot be blocked, c lose the

disk management applications that use this disk/volume and start again. If you cannot determine

which applications use the disk/volume, close them all.


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2. In the disk mana gement area, ex amine the c urrent layout of disks and volumes .3. Add one or more mana gement 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. C ommit the pending operations.S ome operations, such a s changing the siz e of a volume from which Windows s tarts , may require

restarting the machine.

R unning Acronis Disk D irector from a bootable mediaAcronis Disk Director has a bootable version that can be run on a bare metal system, or on a crashed

machine that cannot boot normally, or even on a non-Windows s ys tem, like L inux. A bootable

version of Ac ronis D isk Director is created withAcronis Bootable Media Builder(p. 49).

T o run Ac ronis D isk D irector, boot the mac hine from a bootable media, a nd then s electAcronis Disk

Director.

While working unde r bootable media(p. 54), Acronis D isk D irector ca n perform almost all theoperations on a ny disks and volumes that can be performed under Windows.

4.4 Acronis Disk Director main windowThe main window of Acronis Disk Director is your main working place with the product.


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1. Menu

The menu provides access to all the actions, tools and settings of Acronis Disk Director.

2. Toolbar

T he toolbar displays the c urrentdisk layout(p. 19) and lets you perform the following actions on

pending operations :C ommit(p. 20), Undo and R edo(p. 21).

Disk Management view

T he disk mana gement area contains the table of disks and volumes a nd the graphica l panel.

3. Ta ble

The table lists all the disks and their volumes and lets you select any of them to perform operations.

Y ou can sort volumes by columns. C lick the column's hea der to sort the volumes in ascending order.

C lick it once ag ain to s ort the volumes in desc ending order.

If required, you c an hide the shown columns and s how the hidden ones.

To show or hide columns

1. R ight-click any column header to open the context menu. T he menu items that are ticked offcorrespond to the column headers presented in the table.

2. C lick the items you want to be displayed/hidden.4. Graphical panel

The graphical panel provides visual information about all the disks and their volumes for better

unders tanding of the volume c onfiguration. T he graphica l panel als o lets you s elect both the volumesand disks to perform operations on them.

5. Ac tions and tools pane

P rovides quick acc es s to the operations that ca n be performed on the se lected disk or volume (s ee

Volume operations(p. 25) and Disk operations(p. 41)) and Acronis tools (seeTools(p. 49)).

4.5 Disk and volume informationIn the table and graphical panelalong with the type, s ize , letter, partitioning scheme, and other

information about disks and volumesyou can also check their status. The status helps you to

estimate the condition of a disk or volume.


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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 .

OfflineA dynamic disk is accessible in read only mode (if you switched it to offline previously), or not

ac ce ss ible at all (corrupted or intermittently unavailable). Y ou ca n make the disk that you

previously switched to offline, fully accessiblesee Changing a disk s tatus: offline to online(p.

46).

ForeignT his s tatus occ urs when you move a dynamic disk to your machine from another computer. To

access data on foreign disks, you have to add these disks to your machine's systemconfigurationsee Importing foreign disks(p. 47), or convert them to basic disksseeDisk

conversion: dynamic to basic(p. 45).

MissingA dynamic disk is c orrupted, powered down, or disc onnected.

Not InitializedA disk does not contain a va lid s igna ture. After you install a new disk, the disk mus t be registered

in the operating systemseeD isk initializa tion(p. 41). Only then, you can create volumes on thatdisk.

To find out more information aboutdisk statuses, please refer to theDisk status descriptionsarticle

on the Microsoft website.

Important!F or ins tructions e xplaining how to repair disks with anOnline (Errors), Offline, orMissingstatus,

ple as e refe r to theTroubleshooting Disk Management article on the Microsoft website.

4.5.2 Volume statusesC heck a volume s tatus to make sure the volume is a cc es s ible and works without problems. V olume

statuses appea r both in the table and graphica l panel.

Here are brief descriptions of the most common volume s tatuses :

HealthyA bas ic or dynamic volume is ac cess ible and functioning correctly. This is the normal volumestatus.

T heHealthystatus often has a number of substatuses that are displayed in the table view (in

parenthes es ) and in the graphica l view (below the volume size and separated by a semicolon).

T heS ystem, Bootand Active substatuses are the most common and des cribed in theActive,

sys tem and boot volumes(p 13) section


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To find out more information about disk statuses, please refer to theVolume s tatus des criptions

article on the Microsoft website.

Important!F or instructions explaining how to repair volumes with e rroneous s tatus es , pleas e refer to theTroubleshooting Disk Managementarticle on the Microsoft website.

4.6 Disk layoutOn a machine with twoor more operating sys tems , repres entation 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, volumeE : might appear as D : or L : when you boot another Windows operating system installed on the same

mac hine. It is a lso pos s ible that this volume will have the s ame letter E : under any Windows

operating s ys tem ins talled on the machine. Moreover, a dynamic disk c reated in one Windows

operating s ys tem is cons idered as aForeign Diskin another Windows operating system or might

even be uns upported by this operating sy stem.

When you need to perform a disk ma nag ement operation on such ma chine, it is nec es sa ry to specify

for which operating system the disk management operation will be performed, i.e. specify the disklayout.

d Disk layout:

C lick the operating sys tem name to se lect another operating s ys tem in theOperating S ystem

S electionwindow.

Under bootable media, this window appears immediately after Acronis D isk D irector is launched. T he

disk layout will be displayed a cc ording to the operating sys tem you select.

4.7 Performing operationsIn Acronis Disk Director, all operations on disks and volumes are performed in the s ame way.

To perform any operation

1. Do any of the following: C lick the disk or the volume, and then s elect the required ac tion in theActions menu. C lick the disk or the volume, and then s elect the required action on theActions pane. R ight-click the disk or volume, a nd s elect the required action in the c ontext menu.

Note:the list of available actions in theActionsmenu, the c ontext menu and theActionspane

depends on the selected volume or disk type Thesame also applies to unallocated space


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view at the top, as well as in the graphical view at the bottom. Any volume changes, including

changing the volume letter or label, are also immediately displayed.

While a n operation is pending it ca n be eas ily undone and redoneseeUndoing pending operations

(p. 21).

4.7.1 Pending operationsAlmost 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 .

T his a pproac h enables you to control all planned operations , double-chec k the intended chang es ,

and, if neces sary, undo operations before they are executed.

All pending operations are added to the pending operations list that can be viewed in thePending

operations window.

To view and commit pending operations

1. On the toolbar, clickC ommit pending operations.2. In the P ending operationswindow, view and examine the list of pending operations.3. C lickProceedto execute the operations . Y ou will not be able to undo any operations a fter you

choose to proceed the operation.

To quit theP ending operationswindow without committing, clickCancel.

If you try to exit Acronis Disk Director while there are pending operations that are not yet

committed, you will be as ked whether you wa nt to commit them. Q uitting the program withoutcommitting the pending operations effectively cancels them.

4.7.2 Undoing pending operationsAny pending operation can be undone or redone.

To undo the latest pending operation in the list

do any of the following:

C lick theUndobutton on the toolbar P ressC trl+ ZUndoing an operation results in canceling one or more pending operations. While the list is

populated this action is available


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ca n ex amine information about disk and volume operations, including reasons any for failures.

P hys ically, a log is a collection of X ML files stored on the mac hine.

K

current ses sion. R ebooting eliminates the log, but you can save the log to a file while the machine is

booted with the media.

To browse the Log

S electView -> View log from the menu.

Way of working with the log

Us e filters to display the des ired log e ntries . Y ou ca n also hide the unneeded columns a nd showthe hidden ones . S ee theF iltering and s orting log entries(p. 22) section for details.

In the log table, select the log entry (or log entries) to take action on itsee Ac tions on logentries (p. 21).

Use theInformation panel to review detailed information on the selected log entry. The panel iscollapse d by default. T o expand the panel, click thechevron. T he content of the panel is also

duplicated in theLog entry detailswindow.

4.8.1 Actions on log entriesThe following is a guideline for you to perform actions on log entries.

All the operations described below are performed by clicking the corresponding items on the log

toolbar.

To Do

S elect a s ingle log entry C lick on it.

S elect multiple log

entries non-contiguous: hold downC T R Land click the log entries individually contiguous: select a single log entry, then hold downSHIFTand click

another entry. A ll the entries between the first and last s elections will b

selected too.

View a log entr 1. S elect a log entry.2. Do one of the following C lick View Details. T he log entry's details will be displayed in a s epar

window.

E xpand theInformation panel, by clicking the chevron.


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S ave a ll the filtered log

entries to a file

1. S et filters (p. 22) to get a list of the log entries that satisfy the filteringcriteria.

2. C lick S ave All to F ile.3. In the opened window, specify a path and a name for the file. As a res u

the log entries of that list will be saved.

Delete all the log entries C lick C lear L og.

All the log entries will be deleted from the log, and a new log entry will be

created. It will contain information about who deleted the entries and when.

4.8.2 Filtering and sorting log entriesThe 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, s elect the da te s tartingfrom which to displa y the logentries.

2. In the To field, select the date up to which to display the log entries.F ilter log entries by

Type the required value (owner name, code number) in the field below the

respective column header.

As a res ult you will see that the list of log entries fully or just partly c oincide

with the entered value.

F ilter log entries by type P ress or releas e the following toolbar buttons :

to filter error messages

to filter warning messages

to filter information messages

S ort log entries by date

and time; type; mess ag

C lick the c olumn's header to sort the log e ntries in as cending order. C lick i

once again to sort the log entries in descending order.

C onfiguring the log table

By default, the table has three columns that are displayed, the others are hidden. If required, you can

hide the s hown columns and s how the hidden ones.

To show or hide columns

1. R ight-click a ny column header to open the context menu. T he menu items that are ticked offd t th l h d t d i th t bl


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4.10 How toHow to create a volume that spans across several disks?

C reate a dynamic volume (spa nned or striped) by using theC reate volume(p. 25) wizard.

How to increase a volume size at the expense of other volumes' unallocated space?

R es ize(p. 27) the volume.

How to merge two volumes without los ing your data?

Use theMerge (p. 30) operation.

How to make the existing volume fault-tolerant?

Add a mirror(p. 35) to this volume.

How to recover an a cc identally deleted bas ic volumethat has important data?

Use theR ecovery E xpert(p. 56) tool.

How to replace a hard disk without reinstalling the operating system and applications?

Use theC lone(p. 41) operation.

How to move dynamic disks fromone s ystem to another?

Use theImport foreign disks(p. 47) operation.

How to get quick ac cess to the data s tored on a L inux volume under Windows?

Use theB rowse files(p. 37) operation.

How to place files from a Linux volume into a folder on a Windows volume?

Use theMerge (p. 30) operation, selecting the Windows volume as the main volume.

How to erase all information on the volume?

Use theFormat(p. 30) operation.

How to increas e the s ystem performance?

Use theDefrag mentation(p. 37) operation.

How to verify the logical integrity of a file system on a volume and repair any errors found?

Use theC heck(p. 37) operation.

How to explore data stored on a volume before performing any operation?

Use theB rowse files(p. 37) operation.


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Use theC lean up disk(p. 48) operation.


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5Volume operations

T his s ection des cribes all the operations that you ca n perform with volumes in Ac ronis D isk D irector.

Acronis Disk D irector must obtain exclus ive ac ces s to the target disk/volume. T his mea ns no other

disk management utilities (suc h as the Windows D isk Management utility) c an ac ces s it at that time.

If you rece ive a messag e s tating that the disk/volume cannot be blocked,close the disk ma nagement

applications that use this disk/volume and start again. If you cannot determine which applications

use the disk/volume, close them all.

In this section

C reating a volume....................................................................................25

R esizing a volume.....................................................................................27

C opying a volume.....................................................................................28

Moving a volume......................................................................................28

Merging basic volumes............................................................................30

F ormatting a volume................................................................................30

D eleting a volume..... ...... ...... ...... ...... .......................................................31

S plitting a ba s ic volume...........................................................................31

C hanging a volumelabel..........................................................................32

C hanging a drive letter.............................................................................33

C onverting a primary volume to logical...................................................33

C onverting a logica l volume to primary...................................................34

C hanging a partition type.........................................................................34

S etting a volume active............................................................................35Adding a mirror........................................................................................35

R emoving a mirror...................................................................................36

B reaking a mirrored volume.................................................................... 36

Browsing a volume's content................................................................... 37

C heck ing a volume for errors................................................................... 37

Defragmenting a volume.........................................................................37

C hanging a cluster size.............................................................................38

C hanging a file system............ ............... ..................................................38Hiding a volume...... ...... ..... ...... ..... ...........................................................39

Unhiding a volume..... ...... ...... ..... ...... .......................................................39

S pecifying i-node density.........................................................................40

5 1 C ti l


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2. S pecify the type that the new volume will have. E very volume type is provided with a briefdescription to let you better understand the advantages and limitations of each possible volume

type. To learn more about volume typesseeTypes of bas ic volumes(p. 11) andTypes of

dynamic volumes(p. 12).

T he list of volume types contains only thetypes that are supported (p. 13) by the current operating system.

3. Depending on the type of the new volume, specify one or more disks where you want to createthe new volume:

If the new volume is bas ic, select one bas ic disk a nd spec ify one region of unallocated s paceon that disk.

Note:Y ou cann ot create a basic volume on a dis k that already has four primary volumes; y ou first needto c onvert one of thos e volumes to logicalseeC onve rting a primary volume to logical(p. 33). T his

restriction does not apply to GP T disks .

If the new volume is s imple or spanned, s elect one or more disks . If the new volume is striped, select two or more disks. If the new volume is mirrored, select two disks.Note for striped and mirrored volumes:Because thesevolumes occupy space on their disks in equal parts,the maximum s ize of suc h volume will depe nd on the s elec ted d isk with the leas t amount of unallocated

space.

When creating a dynamic volume and selecting one or several basic disks as its destination, the

selected disks will be converted to dynamic automatically.

4. S pecify the s ize of the new volume. By default, the volume size is se t to maximum. To s pecify adifferent size, move the s lider or enter the required value into theVolume sizefield.

If the disk still has unallocated space after you have set the size of the volume, you can set theamount of unallocated space before and after the basic volume. To do this, drag the volume

within the unallocated space, or type the required amount of space before and after the volume

in the respective fields.

In the volume layout diagram at the bottom of the window, you can specify the space that the

volume will occ upy on ea ch of the s elected disks , by typing the amounts or by dragg ing the

sliders.

5. S pec ify the following options of the new volume: F ile sys tem(by default,NTFS). S ome of thesupported file systems(p. 7) will be disabled

depending on the chosen volume type and sizefor exa mple, F AT 32 will be disa bled if the

volume size has been setat more than 2 TB.

C luster size. S elect the cluster s izethe smallest amount of disk space which will beallocated to store a file We recommend leaving the default size which is marked in the list


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Acronis Disk Director 11 User Manual

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