Table of Contents
ABOUT THIS GUIDE ............................................................................................ 9
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................... 11
1.1 ACRONIS OS SELECTOR AS A BOOT MANAGER............................ 11
1.2 ACRONIS OS SELECTOR AS A PARTITION MANAGER.................... 12
1.3 ACRONIS OS SELECTOR KEY FEATURES ...................................... 12
1.4 MAIN DISK ADMINISTRATOR FEATURES....................................... 13
1.5 ACRONIS OS SELECTOR SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS........................ 14
1.6 HOW DOES ACRONIS OS SELECTOR FUNCTION? .......................... 15
1.7 WHAT IS A BOOT CONTEXT?......................................................... 15
CHAPTER 2. BASIC INFORMATION................................................................ 17
2.1 WHAT IS A HARD DISK? ................................................................ 17
2.1.1 HARD DISK ARCHITECTURE .....................................................................17
2.1.2 HOW DOES HARD DISK WORK?................................................................17
2.2 HARD DISK FORMATTING ............................................................. 18
2.2.1 PHYSICAL FORMATTING ...........................................................................18
2.2.2 LOGICAL FORMATTING.............................................................................18
2.3 FILE SYSTEMS................................................................................ 19
2.3.1 FAT16......................................................................................................19
2.3.2 FAT32......................................................................................................20
2.3.3 NTFS........................................................................................................20
2.3.4 LINUX EXT2 .............................................................................................20
2.3.5 LINUX EXT3 .............................................................................................21
2.3.6 LINUX REISERFS ......................................................................................21
2.4 PARTITIONS ................................................................................... 21
2.4.1 WHEN IS IT USEFUL TO HAVE MULTIPLE PARTITIONS? ............................21
2.4.2 PARTITION STRUCTURE ON A HARD DISK................................................. 21
2.5 BOOT SEQUENCE ........................................................................... 23
2.5.1 VERY BEGINNING .....................................................................................23
2.5.2 BOOTING WITHOUT THE BOOT MANAGER ................................................23
2.5.3 WHAT DOES THE BOOT MANAGER DO? ....................................................23
2.6 MANAGING PARTITIONS................................................................ 24
2.6.1 SETTING AN ACTIVE PARTITION ...............................................................24
2.6.2 ACCESSING THE SAME FILES FROM MULTIPLE OPERATING SYSTEMS ......24
2.6.3 EFFICIENCY OF DISK SPACE USAGE..........................................................24
2.7 HIDDEN PARTITIONS ..................................................................... 25
2.8 DRIVE LETTERS ............................................................................. 26
2.9 ASSIGNMENT OF LETTERS IN DIFFERENT OPERATING SYSTEMS .. 26
2.9.1 MS-DOS 5.0-6.22, MS-DOS 7.0, WINDOWS 95 (ORIGINAL)...................26
2.9.2 MS-DOS 7.1/8.0, WINDOWS 95 OSR2/98/ME ........................................27
2.9.3 OS/2 .........................................................................................................27
2.9.4 WINDOWS NT/2000/XP............................................................................27
2.10 TROUBLES ARISING FROM CHANGING LETTER ASSIGNMENT ...... 28
2.11 1024 OR 4096 CYLINDER LIMIT .................................................... 28
2.12 64K BOOT CODE LIMIT ................................................................. 30
CHAPTER 3. INSTALLING AND UNINSTALLING ACRONIS OS SELECTOR... 31
3.1 GETTING STARTED ........................................................................ 31
3.2 INSTALLATION............................................................................... 32
3.3 REPAIRING/UPGRADING ACRONIS OS SELECTOR......................... 34
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