Introduction - ACRONIS PARTITIONEXPERT 2003 User Manual

Introduction

What is Acronis PartitionExpert
Acronis PartitionExpert is a hard disk partition manager, enabling you to:
• Create hard disk partitions,
• Resize and move them without data loss and destruction,
• Convert partitions to other file systems without data loss,
• Copy (move) partition contents,
• Delete partitions,
• Format, label, assign letters, hide and unhide partitions, set active parti-
tions and perform rarely used operations.
Some terms of this Guide might seem unfamiliar. Appendix A «Hard Disk And
Operating System» and Appendix B «Glossary» provide descriptions of some hard
disk data storage components and used terms.
The purpose of Acronis PartitionExpert
Current hard disks feature 100 GB and higher capacity. To better organize
application files, images, video files, etc. – it makes sense to keep them on
separate partitions.
Disk space should be controlled. Acronis PartitionExpert enables you to re-
configure hard disk partitions any time to use the disk space most efficiently.
By partitioning your hard disk, you get the following advantages:
1. More effective hard disk space usage.
The cluster is a minimal data storage unit in Windows FAT16, FAT32
and NTFS file systems. High-capacity disks usually feature 32 KB clus-
ters. Keeping numerous small files on a disk, wastes much of the disk
space. Having partitioned it, you can significantly reduce space losses.
(For details see A.9.2 «FAT16» — Table 3.)
2. Different partitions for operating system(s), applications and data.
If the system partition (where the OS is installed) is destroyed by a virus,
for example, it will not affect your data partitions.
3. The opportunity to install several operating systems on different
partitions.
Installing several operating systems enables you to master new OS ver-
sions, or work with older, but useful applications.
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