Paragon Partition Manager - 15 Professional User Manual

PARAGON Software GmbH

Heinrich-von-Stephan-Str. 5c  79100 Freiburg, Germany

Tel. +49 (0) 761 59018201  Fax +49 (0) 761 59018130

Internet www.paragon-software.com  Email sales@paragon-software.com

Partition Manager™ 15 Professional

User Manual

Contents

Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 6

What’s New in Partition Manager 15 ........................................................................................................... 6

Product Components ............................................................................................................. 6

Features Overview ................................................................................................................. 7

Features ..................................................................................................................................................... 7

User Friendly Fault Minimizing Interface ................................................................................................................................ 7

Backup Facilities ...................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Restore Facilities ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Virtualization Facilities ............................................................................................................................................................ 7

Boot Management Facilities ................................................................................................................................................... 8

Partition/Hard Disk Management Facilities ............................................................................................................................ 8

File System Optimization Facilities ......................................................................................................................................... 8

Auxiliary Facilities ................................................................................................................................................................... 8

Supported Technologies .............................................................................................................................. 9

Supported Virtualization Software .............................................................................................................. 9

Supported virtual hard drive types ....................................................................................................................................... 10

Supported File Systems .............................................................................................................................. 10

Supported Media ....................................................................................................................................... 10

Getting Started .................................................................................................................... 10

System Requirements ................................................................................................................................ 10

Installation ................................................................................................................................................ 11

First Start ................................................................................................................................................... 12

Building Recovery Media ............................................................................................................................ 13

Booting from the Linux/DOS Recovery Media ............................................................................................. 13

Startup .................................................................................................................................................................................. 13

Boot menu ............................................................................................................................................................................ 14

Booting from the WinPE Recovery Media ................................................................................................... 16

Startup .................................................................................................................................................................................. 16

Basic Concepts ..................................................................................................................... 17

pVHD Support ............................................................................................................................................ 17

Dynamic Disks ............................................................................................................................................ 18

GPT versus MBR ......................................................................................................................................... 19

uEFI Boot Challenges .................................................................................................................................. 19

Apple Boot Camp ....................................................................................................................................... 19

64-bit Support ............................................................................................................................................ 20

Drive Partitioning ....................................................................................................................................... 20

Windows Components ........................................................................................................ 20

Interface Overview .................................................................................................................................... 21

General Layout ...................................................................................................................................................................... 21

Tool Button ........................................................................................................................................................................... 22

Ribbon Panel ......................................................................................................................................................................... 22

Set View Button .................................................................................................................................................................... 22

Virtual Operations Bar .......................................................................................................................................................... 23

Express Mode Button ........................................................................................................................................................... 23

Disk Map ............................................................................................................................................................................... 23

Disk and Partitions List .......................................................................................................................................................... 24

Context-sensitive Menu ........................................................................................................................................................ 25

Properties Panel .................................................................................................................................................................... 25

Status Bar .............................................................................................................................................................................. 26

Settings Overview ...................................................................................................................................... 26

General Options .................................................................................................................................................................... 27

Backup Image Options .......................................................................................................................................................... 28

General Copy and Backup Options ....................................................................................................................................... 29

CD/DVD/BD Recording Options ............................................................................................................................................ 29

Hot Processing Options ......................................................................................................................................................... 30

VD Container Options ........................................................................................................................................................... 31

Partitioning Options .............................................................................................................................................................. 31

E-Mail Options ...................................................................................................................................................................... 32

Operation Dependency Options ........................................................................................................................................... 33

Virtual Mode Options ........................................................................................................................................................... 33

File System Conversion Options ........................................................................................................................................... 34

Log Files Options ................................................................................................................................................................... 35

Viewing Disk Properties ............................................................................................................................. 35

Viewing Image Properties .......................................................................................................................... 35

Using the Restore Wizard ..................................................................................................................................................... 35

Data Backup and Rescue ............................................................................................................................ 37

Creating Backup Images ........................................................................................................................................................ 37

Restoring System and Data ................................................................................................................................................... 40

Boot Management ..................................................................................................................................... 44

Partition Management ............................................................................................................................... 45

Basic Partitioning Operations ............................................................................................................................................... 45

Advanced Partitioning Operations........................................................................................................................................ 54

Changing Partition Attributes ............................................................................................................................................... 65

Hard Disk Management ............................................................................................................................. 68

Converting Dynamic MBR to Basic ....................................................................................................................................... 68

Converting GPT to Basic MBR ............................................................................................................................................... 69

Converting Basic MBR to GPT ............................................................................................................................................... 70

Updating MBR ....................................................................................................................................................................... 70

Changing Primary Slot ........................................................................................................................................................... 71

Extra Functionality ..................................................................................................................................... 72

View Partition/Hard Disk Properties ..................................................................................................................................... 72

Volume Explorer ................................................................................................................................................................... 73

File Transfer Wizard .............................................................................................................................................................. 75

Mount Partition .................................................................................................................................................................... 76

Defragment MFT ................................................................................................................................................................... 77

Compact MFT ........................................................................................................................................................................ 78

Test Surface .......................................................................................................................................................................... 79

Check File System Integrity ................................................................................................................................................... 79

Edit/View Sectors .................................................................................................................................................................. 80

Send Log Files ........................................................................................................................................................................ 81

View Logs .............................................................................................................................................................................. 81

Typical Scenarios ................................................................................................................. 82

Backup Scenarios ....................................................................................................................................... 82

New Backup Format.............................................................................................................................................................. 82

Legacy Backup Format .......................................................................................................................................................... 85

Recovery Scenarios .................................................................................................................................... 91

New Backup Format.............................................................................................................................................................. 91

Legacy Backup Format .......................................................................................................................................................... 94

Copying of data from the corrupted system disk to another hard disk ............................................................................. 103

Burning of data from the corrupted system disk to CD/DVD ............................................................................................. 105

Copying of data from a backup to the corrupted system partition .................................................................................... 107

Restoring separate files and folders from a backup ........................................................................................................... 110

Fixing Boot Problems without Restore ............................................................................................................................... 115

Resize Scenarios ....................................................................................................................................... 120

Creating a new partition to detach operating system from the rest of data ..................................................................... 120

Increasing size of a system partition by taking unused space of an adjacent partition ..................................................... 121

Increasing size of a system partition by taking unused space from any other ................................................................... 122

Increasing size of a system partition by taking unused space of an adjacent logical partition .......................................... 126

Separating OS from media data .......................................................................................................................................... 127

Merging a system partition with an adjacent logical partition........................................................................................... 130

Shrinking a system partition to increase size of a data partition ....................................................................................... 131

Resizing partitions of Apple Boot Camp ............................................................................................................................. 134

Creating Dual Boot Systems ..................................................................................................................... 136

Windows Vista + Windows XP ............................................................................................................................................ 136

Windows XP + Windows Vista ............................................................................................................................................ 141

Connecting a virtual disk (Connect VD) ..................................................................................................... 143

Repartitioning a virtual disk ................................................................................................................................................ 145

Exchanging data between physical and virtual environments ........................................................................................... 148

Copying data from a parent virtual disk to one of its snapshots ........................................................................................ 149

Using 2.2TB+ HDD as internal data storage in Windows XP ....................................................................... 150

Extra Scenarios for WinPE ........................................................................................................................ 152

Adding specific drivers ........................................................................................................................................................ 152

Configuring network ........................................................................................................................................................... 153

Saving log files ..................................................................................................................................................................... 156

Troubleshooter .................................................................................................................. 157

Glossary ............................................................................................................................. 159

Our company is constantly releasing new versions and updates to its software, that's why images shown in this manual may be different from what you see on your screen.

Introduction

Paragon Partition Manager™ 15 Professional is an integrated set of powerful tools that is specially designed to tackle most of the problems you might face while using PC. A highly intelligent program engine together with built-in advanced recovery facilities make it possible to securely carry out partitioning operations of any complexity on physical and virtual disks, optimize performance of NTFS file system, etc. without fear to lose precious data.

In this manual you will find the answers to many of the technical questions, which might arise while using the program.

What’s New in Partition Manager 15

 Embedded Recovery Media Builder (RMB) 3.0. Instead of two utilities downloaded from Paragon's website

(BMB and RMB), the new RMB 3.0 is now embedded into the product. Combining the best of the two utilities, it can boast more options, usability, and stability:

- Prepares Linux or WinPE-based bootable environment on a USB thumb drive or in an ISO image;

- Doesn’t obligatory require Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) or Automated Installation Kit

(WAIK) on Windows 7 and later platforms;

- Can build WinPE-based media on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003 if there’s WAIK installed in the system;

- Allows injecting additional drivers for storage devices, network controllers, USB controllers, or system

during setup;

- Enables to set up a network connection with a pre-mounted network share during setup;

- Prepares hybrid (both, uEFI and BIOS compatible) 64-bit recovery environment on flash or in an ISO image.

 Predefined views. The Windows 8 like streamlined, tile-oriented interface has been enhanced by predefined

views, which enable to adjust the working environment to particular customer needs.

Product Components

In order to cope with different tasks, the product contains several components:

 Windows based set of utilities is the crucial part of the product. With the help of an easy to use launcher you

may find and run tasks of any complexity in the field of data and system protection, hard disk partitioning and cloning, etc.

 Linux/DOS based recovery environment is a multi-platform bootable media that enables to run utilities under

Linux or PTS DOS, and that way to get access to your hard disk for maintenance or recovery purposes. Both platforms have their strong sides, for instance Linux can boast support of FireWire (i.e. IEEE1394) or USB devices. It enables to burn CD/DVD discs. However there can be some difficulties with detecting new hardware. DOS in its turn has no problems of that kind but is limited in features. The Linux/DOS recovery environment requires no installation and can be of great help when the system fails to boot. Besides it offers a Windows XP like environment.

 WinPE based recovery environment. Especially for keen followers of Windows, our product offers the option to

prepare a WinPE based bootable media. Unlike the Linux/DOS recovery environment it can boast an excellent hardware support and the same interface as the Windows version can. However its system requirements are much tougher.

Features Overview

This chapter dwells upon key benefits and technical highlights of the product.

Features

Let us list some of the features:

User Friendly Fault Minimizing Interface

 Graphical representation of the data to gain a better understanding.  A handy Launcher to easily find and run the required tasks.  Comprehensive wizards to simplify even the most complex operations.  A context sensitive hint system for all functions of the program.  Previewing the resulting layout of hard disks before actually executing operations (so-called virtual

operations).

Backup Facilities

 Available location for backup images:

- Backup to local mounted partitions.

- Backup to local unmounted (without drive letter assigned) partitions.

- Backup to an external mounted storage to provide for a higher level of data protection and system independence.

- Backup to external media (CD/DVD) to guarantee a high level of data protection as long as the backup media is kept secure.

- Backup to a network drive to stand a better chance of success in case of a hard disk failure.

For PBF images:

 Back up separate partitions or entire disks.

For pVHD images:

 Backup to VD Wizard to protect separate partitions or entire hard disks.

Restore Facilities

 Restore an entire disk, separate partitions or only files you need from the previously created backup image (for

PBF and pVHD).

 Restore with Shrink to restore a backup image to a free block of smaller size taking into account only the

amount of actual data of the image.

Virtualization Facilities

 Connect VD to connect a virtual disk as if it’s an ordinary physical disk, thus opening up all functionality available

for physical disks to virtual.

Boot Management Facilities

 Boot Manager Setup Wizard to easily manage several operating systems on one computer.

Partition/Hard Disk Management Facilities

 Basic functions for initializing, partitioning and formatting hard disks (create, format, delete). Instead of the

standard Windows disk tools, the program supports all popular file systems.

 Express Create Partition Wizard to create a new partition in the most appropriate place of a hard disk, format it

to NTFS and then make it available in the system by assigning a drive letter.

 Split Partition Wizard helps you separate OS and data or different types of data by splitting one partition to two

different partitions of the same type and file system.

 Merge Partitions Wizard to consolidate the disk space, which originally belongs to two adjacent partitions

(NTFS, FAT16/FAT32), into a single, larger partition.

 Redistribute Free Space Wizard to increase free space on one partition by up-taking the on-disk unallocated

space and the unused space of other partitions.

 Express Resize Partitions Wizard to increase free space on one partition by up-taking the unused space of an

adjacent partition of a hard disk (including partitions of Apple Boot Camp).

 NTFS hot resize upward to enlarge an NTFS partition (system, locked) without rebooting Windows and

interrupting its work.

 Convert a file system (FAT16/32, NTFS, Apple HFS) without reformatting.  Mount a partition (assign a drive letter) of any file system type to make it available for your operating system.  Modify file system parameters (make active/inactive, hide/unhide, etc.).  Install New OS Wizard to make a system ready to install a new operating system.  Undelete Partitions Wizard to recover an accidentally deleted partition.

File System Optimization Facilities

 MFT defragmentation and shrinking to improve performance of NTFS.

Auxiliary Facilities

 GPT Loader is a special system driver to allow use of all space of modern ultra high capacity drives (larger than

2.2TB) on systems that don't support it.

 Conversion of basic MBR disks to basic GPT to enjoy all benefits of the newest partitioning scheme with

minimal effort.

 File Transfer Wizard to make such operations as transferring of files/directories or burning of them to CD/DVD

as easy and convenient as possible. Providing access to Paragon backups as regular folders, it may also help to replace corrupted data from a previously created image in case of an operating system failure.

 Volume Explorer is a handy tool when you have different file systems on the disk, whether they contain an

operating system or just data. Volume Explorer will let you explore a file system of any type and provide access to the necessary files and directories regardless of their security attributes.

 Network Configuration Wizard to establish a network connection on a bootable recovery media either to save a

backup of a partition/hard disk or just several files on a network computer or retrieve a previously made backup from a network computer for recovery purposes.

Boot Corrector is only available for the bootable recovery environment.

 Boot Corrector to fix most of the system boot problems that can be a result of a human factor, program error or

a boot virus activity.

Supported Technologies

Along with using innovative technologies from outside, Paragon has developed a number of its own original technologies that make its products unique and attractive for customers:

 Paragon Hot Backup™ technology to back up locked partitions and hard disks under Windows NT+ family

operating systems providing both high operating efficiency as well as low hardware requirements.

 Paragon Power Shield™ technology to provide data consistency in case of a hardware malfunction, power

outages or an operating system failure.

 Paragon UFSD™ technology to browse partitions of any file system including hidden and unmounted, modify

and copy files and folders, etc.

 Paragon Hot Resize™ technology to enlarge NTFS partitions (system, locked) without rebooting Windows and

interrupting its work.

 Paragon Restore with Shrink™ technology to restore a backup image to a free block of smaller size taking into

account only the amount of actual data of the image.

 Paragon Smart Partition™ technology to securely perform hard disk partitioning operations of any complexity.  Paragon BTE™ technology to set tasks for execution during the system restart, thus saving from the need to use

a bootable media when modifying system partitions.

 Paragon VIM™ (Virtual Image Management) technology that enables Paragon products work with virtual disks

as though they are physical hard disks.

 Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to provide the copy/backup infrastructure for the Microsoft

Windows XP/Vista/7/Server 2003/2008 operating systems. It offers a reliable mechanism to create consistent point-in-time copies of data known as shadow copies. Developed by Microsoft in close cooperation with the leading copy/backup solution vendors on the market, it is based on a snapshot technology concept.

 Microsoft Dynamic Disk (simple, spanned, striped, mirrored, RAID-5) to offer more management flexibility

without the partition limitation of basic disks. Dynamic storage can be particularly beneficial for large-scale businesses when dealing with many physical hard disks involving complex setup.

 GUID Partition Table (GPT). It is the next generation of a hard disk partitioning scheme developed to lift

restrictions of the old MBR. GPT disks are now supported by Windows Vista/7, Server 2008, Mac OS X and Linux.

Supported Virtualization Software

For direct access to virtual hard drives

 Microsoft Virtual PC 2007  Microsoft Windows Virtual PC  Microsoft Hyper-V R1/R2  Oracle Virtual Box 1.0-4.x

Snapshot disks of Oracle VirtualBox are not supported.

Unfortunately, support of non-Roman characters for the HFS+ file system is unavailable at the moment. The company is about to implement it in the nearest future.

 VMware Player  VMware Workstation  VMware Fusion

Supported virtual hard drive types

 VMware - Virtual Machine Disk Format (VMDK)  Microsoft - Virtual Hard Disk (VHD)  Oracle - Virtual Desktop Image (VDI)  Paragon’s backups (PBF/pVHD)

Supported File Systems

 Full read/write access to FAT16/FAT32 partitions.  Full read/write access to NTFS (Basic Disks) under Windows, Linux and PTS DOS. Compressed NTFS files are also

supported.

 Full read/write access to Ext2FS/Ext3FS/Ext4FS partitions.  Limited read/write access to Apple HFS+ partitions.

Supported Media

 Support of both MBR and GPT hard disks (2.2TB+ disks included)  IDE, SCSI and SATA hard disks  SSD (Solid State Drive)  AFD (Advanced Format Drive)  Non-512B sector size drives  CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-R, DVD+R double layer and also Blu-ray discs  FireWire (i.e. IEEE1394), USB 1.0, USB 2.0, USB 3.0 hard disks  PC card storage devices (MBR and GPT flash memory, etc.)

Getting Started

In this chapter you will find all the information necessary to get the product ready to use.

System Requirements

For the Windows installation package

 Windows XP SP3

During the installation additional free space (up to 1GB) will be required.

In case there is some previous version of the program installed on the computer, the program will offer the user to uninstall it first.

 Windows Vista  Windows 7  Windows 8  Windows 8.1

Additional requirements:

 To install and run the product the target OS should have Visual Studio C++ 2010 Runtime Library installed

(comes with the installation package – you will be prompted to install it, if it’s not been found in the system).

For the Linux bootable environment

 Intel Pentium CPU or its equivalent, with 300 MHz processor clock speed  256 MB of RAM  SVGA video adapter and monitor  Keyboard  Mouse

For the WinPE bootable environment

 Intel Pentium III CPU or its equivalent, with 1000 MHz processor clock speed  At least 1 GB of RAM  SVGA video adapter and monitor  Keyboard  Mouse

Additional requirements

 Network card to send/retrieve data to/from a network computer  Recordable CD/DVD drive to burn data to compact discs  External USB hard drive to store data.

Installation

Before the installation, please make sure the systems requirements are met. If everything is OK, please do the following to install the product:

1. Click on the supplied setup file to initiate the installation. First your system will be checked for the presence of

Visual Studio C++ 2010 Runtime Library and if not found, you will be prompted to install it (comes with the installation package). Click Install to continue.

Do not install the program on network drives. Do not use Terminal Server sessions to install and run the program. In both cases, the program functionality will be limited.

The program provides wide opportunities in the field of hard disk structure modification, so just to be on the safe side, please make a backup of your data before carrying out any operation.

2. The Welcome page will inform that the application is being installed. Click Next to continue.

3. Please Read Paragon License Agreement carefully and then select the appropriate option to accept. Otherwise

you won’t be able to proceed with the installation. By clicking the Print button, the license agreement may also be printed out.

4. Provide your product key and serial number.

5. On the Customer Information page you are to provide the standard customer information, i.e. a user name and

an organization. Besides you need to decide whether to make the program available for all users of this computer (if several) or only for the current one.

6. On the next page, click Change to install the utility to a different location (by default C:\Program Files\Paragon

Software\Paragon Partition Manager 15 Professional Edition\). Otherwise click Next to continue.

7. On the Ready to Install the Program page click Install to start the installation or Back to return to any of the

previous pages and modify the installation settings.

8. The Final page reports the end of the setup process. Click Finish to complete the wizard.

First Start

To start Paragon Partition Manager 15 under Windows, please click the Windows Start button and then select Programs > Paragon Partition Manager™ 15 > Paragon Partition Manager™.

The first component that will be displayed is called the Express Launcher. Thanks to a well thought-out categorization and hint system, it provides quick and easy access to wizards and utilities that we consider worth using on a regular

basis. With its help you can also start up the traditional launcher, the help system or go to the program’s home page.

To know more on how to handle the product’s interface and accomplish typical operations,

please consult the Windows Components chapter.

Please use Recovery Media Builder to prepare Paragon's recovery environments on CD/DVD, flash, or in an ISO-image.

To automatically boot from the recovery media please make sure the on-board BIOS is set up to boot from CD/USB first.

Building Recovery Media

WinPE- and/or Linux-based recovery environments should be prepared on-site with Paragon’s Recovery Media Builder. To know more on the subject, please consult documentation that comes with this utility.

Booting from the Linux/DOS Recovery Media

The Linux/DOS recovery environment can be used to boot your computer into Linux or PTS DOS to get access to your hard disk for maintenance or recovery purposes. It also has the PTS DOS safe mode, which may help in a number of nonstandard situations such as interfering hardware settings or serious problems on the hardware level. In this case, only basic files and drivers (such as hard disk drivers, a monitor driver, and a keyboard driver) will be loaded.

Startup

To start working with the Linux/DOS recovery environment, please take the following steps:

1. Start up the computer from our Linux/DOS recovery media.

By default the Normal Mode will be automatically initiated after a 10 second idle period.

2. Launch a boot mode you need (Normal, Safe, Low-Graphics Safe) in the Boot menu.

3. Click on the required operation to start. Hints on the selected at the moment item will help you make the right

choice.

4. Consult the help system by pressing ALT+F1 to know more on the subject.

Boot menu

32-bit environment

 Normal Mode. Boot into the Linux normal mode. This mode uses the full set of drivers (recommended);  Safe Mode. Boot into the PTS DOS mode. This mode can be used as an alternative of the Linux normal mode if it

fails to work properly;

 Low-Graphics Safe Mode. Boot into the PTS DOS safe mode. In this case, only the minimal set of drivers will be

included, like hard disk, monitor, and keyboard drivers. This mode has simple graphics and a simple menu;

 Floppy Disk. Reboot the computer from a system floppy disk;  Hard Disk 0. Boot from the primary hard disk;  Find OS(s) on your hard disks. The program will scan hard disks of your computer to find any bootable operating

system.

64-bit environment

 Normal Mode. Boot into the Linux normal mode. This mode uses the full set of drivers (recommended);

While working with the recovery environment you might experience some inconvenience caused by possible video artifacts. It is just a result of changing video modes and in no way will affect the program functionality. If this is the case, please wait a bit and everything will be OK.

If you are going to use network resources, first launch the Network Configuration Wizard to establish a network connection.

 Safe Mode. Boot into the PTS DOS mode. This mode can be used as an alternative of the Linux normal mode if it

fails to work properly;

 Reboot. Restart the computer.  Power off. Shut down the computer.

Normal Mode

When the Normal mode is selected, the Linux launch menu appears:

 Partition Manager (enables to run wizards and dialogs, to specify program settings, to visualize the operating

environment and the hard disk configuration);

 Restore from VD Wizard (allows restoring hard disks and partitions);  File Transfer Wizard (allows coping files/folders to another disk or a partition as well as recording them to

CD/DVD);

 Boot Corrector (helps to correct the Windows System Registry without Windows being loaded);  Network Configurator (enables to establish a network connection under Linux);

 Log Saver (helps to collect and send the necessary log files to the Technical Support);  View the mounted partitions (the list of all mounted partitions will be displayed);

The Linux/DOS recovery environment assigns drive letters to partitions the way it is done in DOS, i.e. one after another, primary partitions at first. Thus mounted partitions may have different drive letters from Windows.

Please use Recovery Media Builder to prepare Paragon's recovery environments on CD/DVD, flash, or in an ISO-image.

To automatically boot from the recovery media please make sure the on-board BIOS is set up to boot from CD/USB first.

 Eject CD/DVD;  Command Line (allows experienced users to execute any operation);  Reboot the computer;  Power off the computer.

To move within the menu, please use the arrow keys of the computer keyboard.

Safe Mode

When the Safe mode is selected, the PTS DOS launch menu appears. It has nearly the same functionality as for the Normal mode except for the Network Configurator and Log Saver commands. Besides due to certain limitations of the PTS DOS environment, there is no possibility to burn CD/DVD discs.

Low Graphics Safe Mode

When the Low Graphics mode is selected, the PTS DOS launch menu appears. It has the same functionality and looks similar to the Safe mode but graphically simpler.

Booting from the WinPE Recovery Media

The WinPE recovery environment can be a real alternative to the Linux/DOS recovery environment. Providing nearly the same level of functionality it offers an excellent hardware support and the same interface as the Windows version does.

Startup

To start working with the WinPE recovery environment, please take the following steps:

1. Start up the computer from the WinPE recovery media.

The WinPE based recovery environment offers excellent hardware support. However in

case it doesn’t have a driver for your disk controller, your hard disks will be unavailable.

Please consult the Adding specific drivers scenario to know how to tackle this issue.

2. Once it has been loaded, you will see the Universal Application Launcher. In general it enables to run

components of the product, load drivers for undefined hardware or establish a network connection.

3. Click on the required operation to start. Hints on the selected at the moment item will help you make the right

choice.

4. Consult the help system by pressing ALT+F1 to know more on the subject.

Basic Concepts

This chapter explains terms and ideas that show how the program works. To understand these helps to obtain a general notion of the operation performance and makes it easier for the user to operate the program.

pVHD Support

Paragon introduces a pVHD (Paragon Virtual Hard Drive) format – a special VHD, optimized for storing backups of virtual and physical machines. It’s very efficient in handling incremental chains, data de-duplication and synchronization. pVHD

allows obtaining backups that are up to four times smaller than original backup objects.

In the current version of the product backup images can be made either in the old PBF or the new pVHD. Please note that the pVHD support has a promotional goal. In future releases pVHD will gradually take the primary role.

Below is the list of wizards that allow working with pVHD:

 Backup to VD Wizard (Linux, Windows, WinPE);  Restore from VD Wizard (Linux, Windows, WinPE).

What you get by using pVHD:

 Incremental imaging works much faster and rock-stable in comparison with the old PBF;  Only pVHD images can be used to do immediate virtualization;  With the new backup technology, available for customers as a new backup image format pVHD, Paragon has

also achieved easy support of any virtual containers (VMDK, VHD, etc.).

Dynamic Disks

As you probably know, MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista/Server 2003/2008 support four primary partitions per physical hard disk, one of which can be extended. Certainly there is the possibility to create logical drives within the extended partition. Such types of disks are called basic. Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003/2008 follow the same strategy: You can have a maximum of four primary partitions, one of which can be an extended partition with logical drives. However, these operating systems also introduce a new disk configuration type - dynamic disk - which must be understood to effectively configure and manage hard disks.

Dynamic disk is a physical disk that doesn't use partitions or logical drives. Instead, it contains only dynamic volumes. Regardless of what format you use for the file system, only Win2K computers can access dynamic volumes directly. However, computers that aren't running Win2K can access the dynamic volumes remotely when connected to the shared folders over the network.

Dynamic disks can co-exist on a system with basic disks. The only limitation is that you cannot mix Basic and Dynamic disks on the same hard drive.

There are five types of dynamic volumes: simple (uses free space from a single disk), spanned (created from free disk space that is linked together from multiple disks), striped (a volume the data of which is interleaved across two or more physical disks), mirrored (a fault-tolerant volume the data of which is duplicated on two physical disks, and RAID-5 volumes (a fault-tolerant volume the data of which is striped across an array of three or more disks).

With dynamic storage, you can perform disk and volume management without the need to restart Windows.

Limitations:

 Dynamic disks are not supported on portable computers.  Dynamic disks are not supported on Windows XP Home Edition-based computers.  You cannot create mirrored volumes or RAID-5 volumes on Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP

Professional, or Windows XP 64-Bit Edition-based computers.

Thus, the dynamic disk is a new way of looking at hard disk configuration. Dynamic disks offer you more management flexibility without the partition limitation of basic disks. Dynamic disks can contain an unlimited number of volumes, but they cannot contain partitions or logical drives. Dynamic storage can be particularly beneficial for large-scale businesses when dealing with many physical hard disks involving complex setup.

It is strongly recommended not to modify the hard disk configuration with Windows Disk Manager. Otherwise it may lead to unexpected consequences, right up to BSOD and inability to boot in Windows XP/Vista. Please use our program to correctly update both MBR and GPT.

GPT versus MBR

GUID Partition Table (GPT) is the next generation of a hard disk partitioning scheme developed to lift restrictions of the old MBR. Being a part of the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) standard proposed by Intel to replace the outdated PC BIOS, it offers a number of crucial benefits:

 Up to 128 primary partitions for the Windows implementation (only 4 in MBR);  The maximum allowed partition size is 18 exabytes (only 2 terabytes in MBR);  More reliable thanks to replication and cyclic redundancy check (CRC) protection of the partition table;  A well defined and fully self-identifying partition format (data critical to the platform operation is located in

partitions, but not in un-partitioned or hidden sectors as this is the case with MBR)

uEFI Boot Challenges

Introduced back in 2005 by Intel to lift restrictions of the old MBR (Master Boot Record) and PC BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), uEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is now a recommended platform for new 64-bit Windows 8 computers. And the reason is easy to catch – besides other unique features impossible for the traditional tandem of BIOS+MBR, only a uEFI-based platform enables to accommodate Windows OS on a partition larger than

2.2TB.

Despite all uEFI advantages however, it has one quite naughty issue: a pretty standard operation with a bootable device

for instance involving its connection to another SATA port results in unbootable Windows. You’ll get the same result if

trying to boot from a cloned system hard disk or from a restored hard disk. All these problems originate from the way uEFI+GPT bundle is organized.

Microsoft provides how-to guides to tackle this type of problems, but they demand a great deal of experience from the user, involving the use of the cmd, diskpart and bcdedit tools.

Paragon has a better way! Introducing an elegant technology, realized at the user side as one simple option, you can define a system GPT volume you’re willing to boot from.

Below is a list of wizards where the uEFI switch boot device option can be found:

 Restore Wizard;  Boot Corrector.

Apple Boot Camp

Boot Camp is a special utility to help you set up a dual boot system (Mac OS X and 32-bit Windows XP/Vista) on Intelbased Macs. It enables to securely re-partition your hard disk (resize an existing HFS+ partition to create a separate partition for Windows) and then launch the installation process. With Boot Camp all the necessary drivers will be at your disposal. Moreover after Windows has been installed it will serve as a boot manager to choose what operating system to start up.

64-bit Support

The bulk of software today is written for a 32-bit processor. It can meet the requirements of almost any end user. However that is not the case when dealing with servers processing large amounts of data with complex calculations of very large numbers. That is where 64-bit architecture comes into play.

It can boast improved scalability for business applications that enables to support more customer databases and more simultaneous users on each server. Besides a 64-bit kernel can access more system resources, such as memory allocation per user. A 64-bit processor can handle over 4 billion times more memory addresses than a 32-bit processor. With these resources, even a very large database can be cached in memory.

Although many business applications run without problems on 32-bit systems, others have grown so complex that they use up the 4 GB memory limitation of a 32-bit address space. With this large amount of data, fewer memory resources are available to meet memory needs. On a 64-bit server, most queries are able to perform in the buffers available to the database.

Some 32-bit applications make the transition to the 64-bit environment seamlessly others do not. For instance, systemlevel utilities and programs that provide direct hardware access are likely to fail. Our program offers a full-fledged support of the 64-bit architecture providing fault-tolerant work for such system dependent modules as Hot Processing.

Drive Partitioning

As you probably know a hard drive is to be split into one or more partitions, since it cannot hold data until it is carved up and space is set aside for an operating system. Until recently most PCs used to have just one partition, which filled the entire hard disk and contained an OS. The situation has changed however, thanks to new cost-effective high capacity hard drives, thus opening up numerous possibilities for PC users, such as editing video, archiving music, backing up CD images, etc. Huge increase in space is great, but it poses a number of problems, most important of which are effective data organization and speed.

Large drives are always going to take longer to search than smaller volumes, and an operating system is going to have its work cut out both finding and organizing files. It is for this reason that many people decide to invest in multiple hard drives, but there is an easy solution – drive partitioning. Partitioning lets you divide a single physical drive into a number of logical drives, each of which servers as a container with its own drive letter and volume label, thus enabling the operating system to process data more efficiently. Besides partitioning makes it possible to organize data so that it is easy to find and manage. You can set aside, for instance, 40 GB of a 160 GB hard drive for the OS, 70 GB for storing video and another 50 GB for your favorite music collections to provide transparent data storage.

It is also worth mentioning to that with a hard drive properly partitioned, such routine operations as files defragmentation or consistency check will not be that annoying and time-consuming any more.

By detaching the OS from the rest of the data you can tackle one more crucial issue – in case of a system malfunction, you can get the system back on track in minutes by recovering it from a backup image located on the other partition of the hard drive.

But that is not all drive partitioning may be used for. If you are willing to play games in Windows while browsing the Internet in Linux, 100-percent sure that no virus will attack your PC, drive partitioning is a necessity. In order to run several OSs on a single hard drive you are to create a corresponding number of partitions to effectively delineate the boundaries of each OS.

Windows Components

In the given section you can find all the information necessary to successfully work with the Windows version of the product.

Interface Overview

This chapter introduces the graphical interface of the program. The design of the interface precludes any mistake being made on the part of the user. Most operations are performed through the system of wizards. Buttons and menus are accompanied by easy understandable icons. Nevertheless, any problems that might occur while managing the program can be tackled by reading this very chapter.

General Layout

When you start the program, the first component that is displayed is called the Launcher. It enables to run wizards and dialogs, to specify program settings, to visualize the operating environment and the hard disk configuration.

The Launcher’s window can be conditionally subdivided into several sections that differ in their purpose and functionality:

1. Tool Button

2. Ribbon Panel

3. Set View Button

4. Virtual Operations Bar

5. Express Mode Button

6. Disk Map

7. Disk and Partitions List

8. Context-sensitive Menu

9. Properties Panel

10. Status Bar

If you’d like to hide all ribbon tabs, click on the arrow button at the right top corner of the program window.

A number of panels offer similar functionality with a synchronized layout. The program enables to conceal some of them to simplify the interface management.

Tool Button

By clicking on this button the user can:

 Launch auxiliary wizards,  Get access to the program settings,  Collect and send a log files package to the Support Team,  Go to Paragon’s website to download a free update, register the product, visit Paragon’s Knowledge Base, etc.

Ribbon Panel

An area across the top of the program’s window is called the Ribbon Panel. It makes almost all the product capabilities

available to the user in a single place. A Ribbon Tab is an area on the panel that contains buttons organized in groups by functionality. Each button corresponds to a certain program wizard or dialog.

Set View Button

You can adjust the working environment by choosing one of two predefined views: general and legacy. This division is quite logical, allowing the user to filter out legacy wizards and dialogs that have to do with the old PBF backup format. Please note that the legacy mode is not active by default.

BUTTON

FUNCTIONALITY

Cancel the last virtual operation on the List of Pending Operations

Cancel the last undo virtual operation on the List of Pending Operations

Display the List of Pending Operations

Launch the real execution of virtual operations

Cancel all virtual operations on the List of Pending Operations

Generate a script out of all pending operations

Schedule pending operations

Virtual mode is an effective way of protection from any troubles, since no operations will be executed until clicking the Apply button for confirmation, thus giving a second chance to weigh all pros and cons of this or that particular operation. The program politely reminds the user that there are unsaved changes by showing the following window:

Virtual Operations Bar

The program supports previewing the resulting layout of hard disks before actually executing operations (so-called virtual mode of execution). In fact, when the virtual mode is enabled, the program does not accomplish operations immediately, but places them on the List of Pending Operations for later execution.

The Virtual Operations Bar enables to manage pending operations.

Express Mode Button

By clicking on this button the user can switch to the express mode of operation at any time.

Disk Map

As the name infers, the Disk Map displays the layout of physical and logical disks. Physical disks are represented with rectangle bars that contain small-sized bars. These small-sized bars represent logical disks. Their color depends on the file system of the appropriate partition. By looking at the size of the bar’s shaded area it is possible to estimate the used disk space. For the selected at the moment object there’s the possibility to call a context-sensitive popup menu with available operations.

Large-sized bars display the following information about physical disks:

 Type (basic or dynamic MBR/GPT),  Manufacturer,

Since the Disk Map and the Disk and Partitions List have the same purpose, the user is allowed to extend only one at the moment by using a corresponding arrow button.

 Model.

Small-sized bars display the following information about logical disks and blocks of free space:

 Volume label (if exists),  Drive letter,  Total size,  File system.

The Disk Map is synchronized with the Context-sensitive Menu and the Properties Panel. Thus by selecting a disk on the map, the two will automatically display detailed information on it. To know more on the subject, please consult the

Viewing Disk Properties chapter.

Disk and Partitions List

The Disk and Partitions List is another helpful tool that helps to get a clear-cut picture on the current state of the system hard disks and partitions. All objects (disks, partitions, or blocks of free space) on the list are sorted according to their starting position. For every item there is the possibility to call a context-sensitive popup menu with available operations.

The Disk and Partitions List provides detailed information on all hard disks and partitions found in the system including the following properties:

- Name,

- Volume label (if exists),

- Drive letter,

- File system type,

- Volume size,

- Amount of used and unused (free) space,

- Active/Inactive attribute,

Since the Disk Map and the Disk and Partitions List have the same purpose, the user is allowed to extend only one at the moment by using a corresponding arrow button.

- Hidden/Unhidden attribute.

The Disk and Partitions List is synchronized with the Context-sensitive Menu and the Properties Panel. Thus by selecting a disk on the list, the two will automatically display detailed information on it. To know more on the subject, please consult the Viewing Disk Properties chapter.

Context-sensitive Menu

The Context-sensitive Menu shows a list of operations available for an object (disk, partition, or block of free space) selected either on the Disk Map or the Disk and Partitions List. If you click a corresponding record the appropriate wizard or dialog will be started. All default values for the operation parameters will correspond to the object’s settings. If there too many items on the list, type in the first word of the required command in the Search commands field to filter the list.

Properties Panel

The Properties Panel provides information on the object (disk, partition, or block of free space) selected either on the

Disk Map or the Disk and Partitions List.

The Properties Panel helps to obtain the following data:



To get a detailed description to any setting, control, or field of the program just click the hint button and then the object you need.

For a hard disk

 Model,  Serial number,  Type of hard disk (basic or dynamic MBR/GPT),  Total size (in GB),  Information on geometry of the disk (amount of sectors per track, heads and cylinders).

For a partition

 Drive letter assigned to the disk,  Volume label (if exists),  Type of the logical disk,  File system,  Root entries,  Serial number,  NTFS version,  Partition ID,  Total size, used space and free space (in GB), etc.

Besides you can modify practically any partition property by clicking on the required value.

For a block of free space

 Total size (in GB).

Status Bar

This is the bottom part of the main window. The Status Bar displays menu hints, for each item the cursor points to.

Settings Overview

To call the Settings dialog, please click Tool Button, then select Settings. All the settings are grouped into several sections, which functions are described in the following paragraphs. The list of sections is placed on the left side of the dialog. By selecting a section from the list, you can open a set of options.

General Options

This section contains a set of general options that will be taken into account during any operation carried out with the program:

 Partition Alignment mode. There are three options you can choose from:

- Legacy. DOS and Windows OSes before Vista required that partitions had to be aligned to the “disk cylinder”

or 63 sectors to address and access sectors correctly. It was OK, until 4K hard drives came into scene. When partitions are aligned this way on this type of disk, each logical cluster is linked to two physical 4K clusters, thus resulting in a double read-write operation.

- Vista. Since Windows Vista, operating systems do not use the archaic CHS (cylinder/head/sector) addressing

scheme, but the Logical Block Addressing (LBA), where sectors are addressed continuously over the whole disk drive. It is optimal for both, 512B and new 4K disk drivers.

- Inheritance. Select the option to disable automatic alignment of partitions.

 Check FS integrity policy. Accomplishment of any data-sensitive operation (resize, move, merge, redistribute,

change cluster size, etc.) is potential with data loss. To minimize this risk, it’s recommended to check integrity of your file system before this type of operations, despite the fact that it’s quite time consuming. We offer you several options to let you choose, which is best for you:

- Always. Maximum protection, but minimal performance. The file system integrity will be checked each time

it’s necessary to guarantee the maximum protection for the on-disk data.

- Once. Standard protection with acceptable performance. The file system integrity will be checked for each

volume only once just before accomplishing data-sensitive operations.

- Never. No protection, but maximum performance. If you’re not 100% sure your disk is rock solid, please do

not use this option.

 Data Loss Protection mode. To guarantee safety for your information when a data-sensitive operation has been

abruptly interrupted as a result of a computer reset, or a power outage, there are several techniques, that correspond to the options below:

- Do not protect. No protection, but maximum performance. If you’re not 100% sure you’re completely safe

from a power outage, or an accidental reset of your computer, please do not use this option.

- Reset. Standard protection with acceptable performance. Maintaining a special journal, our program

enables to automatically complete a data-sensitive operation interrupted by an accidental reset of your computer from our bootable recovery media, thus reviving the corrupted partition.

- Power loss. Maximum protection, but minimal performance. Besides journaling, our program will also

Splitting images enables to tackle problems caused by a maximum file size limitation of some file systems.

disable cache of your disk when accomplishing data-sensitive operations to avoid data loss even in case of a power outage.

Backup Image Options

This section contains a set of options that will be taken into account during backup/restore operations:

 Control archive integrity. Mark the checkbox to guarantee that all backup images created with the program are

100 percent flawless. If you decided not to control the archive integrity, the backup operation would take about 3-5% less time.

 Set image file names automatically. Mark the checkbox to make the program automatically set a file name for

every volume of a complex backup image. Otherwise you will need to do it manually during the backup operation.

 Compression level. From the pull-down list you can select the desired compression level for backup images that

will be used by default.

 Enable image splitting. Mark the checkbox to automatically split every backup image to volumes of a particular

size.

 Maximum split size. With the spinner control you can specify a maximum size for backup volumes.

General Copy and Backup Options

This section contains a set of options that will be taken into account during copy and backup operations:

 HDD raw processing. Mark the checkbox to copy/back up a hard disk in the sector-by-sector mode, thus

ignoring its information structure (e.g. unallocated space or unused sectors of existing partitions will be processed as well). This can help to avoid problems with hidden data created by certain applications or the system administrator. However, it will take more time to accomplish the operation.

 Partition raw processing. Mark the checkbox to copy a partition in the sector-by-sector mode to successfully

process unknown file systems. However it is not recommended to enable this option when working with supported file systems as it takes more time to accomplish the operation.

 Skip OS auxiliary files. Mark the checkbox to skip OS auxiliary files (like pagefile.sys, hiberfil.sys, etc.), thus

reducing the operation time and the resulted size of the backup image.

 Automatic BCD Update. Unmark the checkbox to suppress automatic update of BCD (Boot Configuration Data)

after copy/restore operations.

CD/DVD/BD Recording Options

This section contains a set of options that will be taken into account during CD/DVD/BD burn operations:

 Burn every CD/DVD/BD to the end. By default, the program does not create ISO 9660 compliant burning

sessions, as it processes data on-the-fly and can only estimate the resulted session size. That’s why no third party tool will get access to the recorded data. To tackle the issue, mark the checkbox to make the program

create a standard Disk-at-Once session. It may slow down the burning process, as every CD/DVD/BD will be recorded up to the end, no matter how much actual information to contain.

 Recording speed. The user may define how fast a CD/DVD/BD will be recorded (minimum, normal and

maximum). Besides there is an automatic mode when the program will set the most appropriate speed for every CD/DVD/BD.

 Bootable ISO image. That’s the image to be placed together with the backup data. By default, the program

offers its own bootable ISO image, which contains a Linux/DOS recovery environment. However, the user is free to use any bootable ISO image.

 CD/DVD/BD boot capability. The program enables to choose whether any recorded CD/DVD/BD will be

bootable, or only the first one for a session, or without that function at all.

 Folder where the ISO image is to be placed. When the user decides not to physically burn a CD/DVD/BD, but

create an ISO image file, this very folder will be used to contain these images.

Hot Processing Options

In this section you may configure the hot processing mode:

 Enable hot processing. Mark the checkbox to enable the so called hot data processing mode that is specially

designed to process data without restarting your operating system.

 Hot processing technology. From the pull-down list you can select the required hot processing technology.  Always use hot processing. Select the option to process partitions without making them locked. Thus you will

be able to keep working with them as usual.

 Use hot processing only when partition is locked. Select the option to use the hot processing only when

partitions are locked and cannot be processed without restarting the computer. Please keep in mind, that once you start any operation on a partition in this mode, it will automatically be locked by the program, thus you won't be able to keep working with it as usual.

 Hot processing temporary drive. Here you can select a disk drive that will be used to store the temporary hot

backup data (by default – C:).

+ 130 hidden pages

Paragon Partition Manager - 15 Professional User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual