Partition structure. All the partitions on a hard disk make a tree with the root
in the MBR partition table. Many operating systems and programs assume
that any partition table but MBR may contain not more than one partition
entry and one table entry, and it simplifies the partition structure greatly – all
the logical partitions form one chain.
Partition table. It is the table that contains the information about partitions
and links to other partition tables. A partition table cannot have more than
four entries. Main partition table is located in the hard disk MBR, and the
other partition tables are called extended. Partition tables are usually stored
in the first sector of a cylinder.
Partitioning. The process of creating the logical structure on a hard disk.
Partitioning is usually done with programs like FDISK. Disk Administrator
completely replaces FDISK where functionality is concerned and allows
performing many more useful operations.
Primary partition. The partition, information about which is contained in the
MBR partition table. Majority of operating systems can be booted only from
the primary partition of the first hard disk, but the number of primary
partitions is limited.
Root folder. The folder where the folder tree of a file system begins. Starting
from the root folder one can uniquely describe the file position on the folder
tree by sequentially naming all the intermediate nested folders, e.g.:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32.VXD. Here the WINDOWS folder is a subfolder
of the root folder, SYSTEM folder – of the WINDOWS folder, and the
VMM32.VXD file is located in the SYSTEM folder.
Sector. It is the minimal information unit on a disk that is transferred in
single read or write operation. Usually a sector is 512 bytes in size. A sector
on a disk can be addressed two ways: via the absolute number (see absolute
sector) or via cylinder, head and sector number on a track.
Setup. Acronis OS Selector Setup is stored in the BOOTWIZ\BOOTCFG.EXE
file. Its purpose is to automatically and manually detect the operating
systems, and configure their boot contexts and appearance and other
general Acronis OS Selector parameters.
Status. A flag that shows if a partition is active. This flag is stored in the
partition table and has no meaning for logical partitions.
System folder. Some operating systems keep most of their files in a special
folder on a partition that may be different from the system one. For example
for Windows 95/98/ME operating systems IO.SYS system file resides on the
system partition, while other system files are located in the system folder
which is usually called WINDOWS. Program Files folder can also be treated
as system since it resides on the same partition as WINDOWS and also
contains files that are relevant to the operating system.
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