Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool)   Help

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I. Introduction

II. Notes for Running and using

III. How to:

1. Backup or Restore partition table

2.Create partitions:

a) To create a primary partition
b) To create extended partition
c) To create a logical partition

3.Activate partition

4.Delete partitions

5.Hide partitions

6.Configure partition parameters

7.Check parameters

8.Update partition table

9.View any sectors

10.Change hard disk

11.Date back

12.Rebuild partition table

13.Quick format

14.Resize partition

15.Clear Sectors

16.Surface scan

17.Rebuild MBR (Master Boot Record)

18.Copy sectors


IV. Appendix - About partition table

 



Q.

 Introduction
A.

Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) is a powerful tool which not only allows you to manage your hard disk partitions, such as create partitions or delete partitions, but also allows you to hide partitions, format partitions, resize partitions and rebuild the lost partition table. So much as, it permits you to configure every parameter of the partition table. In addition,Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) provides some other useful functions, such as backup partition table, recover MBR(Master Boot Record), and so on.

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Q.

Notes for Running and using
A.

You should run Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) under pure MS DOS environment, because partition operations are independent of operating systems and very "low level". Additionally, functions such as rebuilding partition table and resizing partitions can only run under pure MS DOS environment. Especially the rebuilding partition table function would frequently run after WINDOWS operating system has been damaged. Of cause, if you only want to take a look on the partition information and do not write to hard disk, you can run Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) under the MS DOS prompted window in WINDOWS 9x or WINDOWS ME. To execute Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool), just type "DiskGen" at MS DOS command prompt. Copying all files of Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) to a bootable floppy disk and running from it is a good idea.
When save partition table to hard disk, the master boot sector will be overwrote. So you should "Disable" the "Anti Virus" option in BIOS setup.
Generic partition tools can only do some basic operation such as creating, deleting or activating on partition table. And these operations are limited to FAT/FAT32 partitions. Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) broke these limitations. Using Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool), you can create many type of partitions. Moreover, you can set detail parameters of the partitions.
When running, the partitions circumstantiality will be displayed using chart and tables. The cylinder diagram in the left displays all partitions' position and size,and the status of free space (unallocated). The first partition of your hard disk is displayed at the bottom of the diagram. Partitions without gridding is primary(like drive C), and the partitions with gridding is logical( like drive D or E).
The type and other detail parameters of partitions are listed in a table on the right half of screen. About the meanings of these parameters, please refer to the appendix of "About Partition Table". A dynamic link line indicates the corresponding relationship between the partitions in the cylinder diagram and in the table.
Before operating on a partition you must select it first. To select a partition, just click on the partition in the diagram or in the table use mouse. And also you can use cursor key for selecting. TAB or SHIFT_TAB key can be used for switch between the diagram and the table. When you  select a FAT or FAT32 partition, the information of the partition will be displayed on the lower window (called message window) of the table. The free space on the diagram can also be selected use the same method.
In order to prevent mistakes, all simple operations like creating, deleting, activating and parameter configuring are not wrote to hard disk immediately. They are saved in memory buffer instead. While complete and there are no errors, you can send out a "apply" command use F8 key or select "Apply" from menu "Disk". Then Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) write all your operations to hard disk one-off.

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Q.

Backup or Restore partition table
A. In order to backup your partition table to a file, press "F9" key or select "Backup" from "Tools" menu, then enter the filename you want backup to. To restore the partition table from a backup file, press "F10" key or select "Restore" from "Tools" menu. Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) will display the partition table on screen after entering a filename. While you can confirm that the partition table is just which you want, you can apply the partition table by press "F8" key or select "Apply" from "Disk" menu.
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Q.

Create partitions
A. a) To create a primary partition, you must select a free space (gray area) from the cylinder diagram first. Then press "Enter" key and input the size of the new partition and select if you want to create a DOS FAT partition. While you want to create a non-DOS partition, you will be prompted to set the partition type. For example, if you want to create Linux partition, you may set the type "83" for native partition or "82" for swap partition. Thirty five partition types are listed in the message window. Using Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool), you can create four primary partitions on maximum.
b) To create extended partition, after selecting a free space,press "F5" key or select "New Extended" from "Partition" menu. Finally, enter a size for the new extended partition.
c) To create a logical partition, at first, please select the green area in the extended partition. Then press "Enter" key, thenceforth operation is similar to create primary partitions. Of cause, before creating logical partitions, you must create a extended partition first. Because logical partitions are involved in the extended partition.
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Q.

Activate partition
A.

Move cursor to the partition you want to activate, press "F7" key or select "Activate" from "Partition" menu. The partition type will turn red when the partition was activated.

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Q.

Delete partitions
A.

 Move cursor to the partition you want to delete, press "Delete" key or "F6" key.

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Q.

Hide partitions
A.  Move cursor to the partition you want to hide, press "F4" key. To unhide it, press "F4" key again.
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Q.

Configure partition parameters
A. Move cursor to the partition you want to configure, press "F11" key. A configuration dialog will be displayed on screen. Move cursor to the parameter you want to change. Then type its value. Select "OK" to complete the change or "Cancel" to give up.
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Q.

Check parameters
A. Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) will automatically check all parameters when loading or updating partition table. To check it manually, just press "F12" key or select "Check" from "Tools" menu.
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Q.

Update partition table
A. While you completing all change on partition table and want to apply the change, press "F8" key or select "Apply" from "Disk" menu. Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) will automatically check the parameters before writing to hard disk.
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Q.

View any sectors
A. You can view ANY sectors on your hard disk by Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool). Press "Ctrl_R" key or select "View Sector" from "View" menu. The first sector of current partition will be displayed by default. To view other sectors, just set the position of the sectors. Use "Tab" key to move cursor to "CYL." (Cylinder), or "HEAD", or "SECT" (Sector) field then enter a value. The sector pointed by the cylinder, head and sector will be displayed immediately. Using "Page Up" or "Page Down" keys, you can view other sectors back and forth. In addition, you can save some of the sectors started from current sector into a file.
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Q.

Change hard disk
A. If you have second (or third) hard disk installed, the "harddisk #" item will be list under "Disk" menu while "#" represent the disk number. Just select this item if you want to do something on that hard disk.
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Q.

Date back
A.  Assume you run Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) and have updated the partition table. But you found something wrong with it. What could you do? Don't worry. "Date back" function will help you. For every writing operation, Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) will save the old data to date back file "LOOKBACK.DAT" and "LOOKBACK.LBK" before overwriting sectors. That's, "LOOKBACK.DAT" and "LOOKBACK.LBK" are used to save the old data of all updated sectors of the LAST RUN. You can use this function to turn the partition table back to before the last run. "LOOKBACK.DAT" and "LOOKBACK.LBK" are saved in Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool)'s directory.
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Q.

Rebuild partition table
A. If partition table was destroyed by virus or other reasons, this function can help you to rebuild the partition table by searching the boot record information of every partition. The searching process can run with "Automatic" mode or "Manual" mode. Automatic mode will automatically save every partition found. That's, you need not control the searching process. This mode is the same with most situation. While, manual mode allows you to select to "Save" or to "Skip" each partition Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) found. When the partition table rebuilt by automatic mode is not correct, you can try manual mode. In searching process, the searched partitions will be displayed on screen in time. But Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) will not automatically save the rebuild result when complete. So, you can search time after time till the correct partition table is rebuilt. The "Rebuild" function item is under "Tools" menu.
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Q.

Quick format
A.  Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) can format FAT or FAT32 partitions. Select "Format FAT(32)" from "Partition" menu to format currently selected partition. Before starting, you can change the default cluster size. After quick formatting, you will be asked to do a surface scan on the partition. According to your hard disk,  if you can make sure that there are no bad sectors on it, you may simply press "Enter" key to skip the scan.
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Q.

Resize partition
A.  This function tries to directly change the size of FAT or FAT32 partition. Select the partition you want to resize and select "Resize FAT(32)" function from "Partition" menu. Then enter a new size. Resize operation will be started. SUGGEST: a) Run WINDOWS disk scan program before resizing. b) BACKUP all important files before resizing! WARNING: Do NOT turn off or reboot your computer while resizing. Otherwise, all files on the resizing partition may be lost!
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Q.

Clear Sectors
A.  Sometime, you delete all files in a partition and hope no one could recover them by any ways. Generally, you can format this partition. But it is trustless. Many times, it can be recovered. In fact, the "FORMAT" command does not really erase any data of the files. It only clears the FAT (File Allocation Table). So the deleted files can be recovered by some softwares. Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) can fill all sectors on the partition with null characters. Then, the files on the partition will be erased really and truly and can't be recovered by anyone. To apply this function on currently selected partition, select "Erase Data" from "Tools" menu. WARNING: It is very dangerous if you select a wrong partition! So you must carefully and carefully.
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Q.

Surface scan
A. This function is used for checking bad sectors on a partition. It checks partitions not by "clusters" and doesn't labeled out the bad sectors on FAT(FAT32) partition. So it can scan any partitions besides FAT or FAT32. You can do the scan by "cylinders", by "heads" or by "sectors". If you select "by cylinders", Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) will skip the bad cylinders it found and do not scan every head of the bad cylinders. So it is fast. If you select "by heads", Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) will skip the bad heads it found and do not scan every sectors. So it is slow. If "by sectors", Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) will check every sectors when it found a bad track (head). So it is slowest. While complete, a bad sectors list file "BADSECT.TXT"  will be created. This function item is under "Tools" menu.
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Q.

Rebuild MBR (Master Boot Record)
A. Use this function to manually rebuild the master boot record (located on cylinder 0, head 0 andsector 1) when it was destroyed and the computer couldn't boot from it. Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool)
will check and rebuild the MBR automatically. This function item is under "Tools" menu.
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Q.

Copy sectors
A. This function can copy some sectors to another position on one hard disk. For example, you may copy the backup boot sectors of a FAT32 partition to the destroyed boot records for recovering. This function is under "Tools" menu. To copy, you must enter a starting position and the number of sectors of source and destination sectors.
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Q.

Appendix - About partition table
A.

 Partition is a piece of disk space marked to belong to some operating system. Partition table is located in the first sector(cylinder 0, head 0 and sector 1) of every hard disk. It has information about sizes and locations of partitions on hard disk. The partition information is started on offset 1BEH of master boot sector. Each partition entry is 16 bytes long. The total partition table is 64 bytes long. Then partition table is limited to maximum 4 entries. That's, there are maximum 4 partitions, called primary partition, can be created on hard disk.
But many people want to create more than 4 partitions. The extended partition is designed for this. Master extended partition is a primary partition. Differ from other partitions, the first sector of extended partition is not a boot sector, but another partition table, called logical partition table.
Commonly, there are only two partition entries in logical partition table. One points to a partition, called logical partition. And the boundary of this logical partition must be limited in the extended partition. So the extended partition is more like a virtual disk. The other entry, if needed, of the extended partition table points to next logical partition table. Similarly, its boundary is limited in its parents extended partition. The next logical partition table may has two partition entries too. The one points to a logical partition. The other points to another logical partition table and the rest may  be deduced by analogy. Therefore, many partitions could be created in extended partition.

Now let us have a look on the layout of a partition entry.
The 16 bytes of one entry are as follows:

OFFSET BYTE DESCRIPTION
0 1 Boot label. Tell computer to boot from
this partition
1 1 Starting head
2 1 Lower 6 bits(bit 0 to bit 5) is starting
sector.
Higher 2 bits(bit 6 to bit 7) is the
higher bits of starting cylinder
3 1 The lower 8 bits of starting cylinder
4 1 Partition type
5 1 Ending head
6 1 Lower 6 bits(bit 0 to bit 5) is ending
sector.
Higher 2 bits(bit 6 to bit 7) is the
higher bits of ending cylinder
7 1 The lower 8 bits of ending cylinder
8 4 Starting sectors of this partition
12 4 Number of sectors of this partition

a) Boot label (offset 0):
Most disks have one primary partition, but some people want to have more than one operating  system on their computers and therefore, have to create other primary partitions. In order to tell the computer which operating system is ready to boot from, one "Active" partition is needed. That's why partition table always keeps an indicator of the currently "Active" partition - the one from which the computer boots. In Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool), the active partition is figured out by partition type with red color.
b) Starting position (offset 1-3):
Describes the partition's starting position, the cylinder, the head and the sector. Also called starting CHS.
starting head = (OFFSET 1) ;
starting sector = (OFFSET 2) & 0x3f ;
starting cylinder = (((OFFSET 2) & 0xc0)<<2)|(OFFSET 3);
c) Partition type (offset 4):
Indicate what file system is in the partition. For example, 06 or 0E indicates a FAT file system. 0B or 0C indicates a FAT32 file system. 07 indicates NTFS or OS/2 HPFS file system.
d) Ending position (offset 5-7):
Describes the partition's ending position, the cylinder, the head and the sector. Also called ending CHS.
e) Starting sectors (offset 8-11):
The number of sectors before this partition. If we count all sectors on hard disk sequentially from zero, this field will exactly point to the first sector of this partition.
f) Number of sectors (offset 12-15):
The total number of sectors on this partition. So the size of this partition will be (Number of sectors)*512/1048576 MB.

For convenience, the boot label and partition type displayed by Partition Disk Genius (Disk Management Tool) are in hex numbers and  other parameters are in decimal numbers by default. The menu item "Decimal View" or "Hex View" under "View" menu is used for changing between hex and decimal display.
To display the starting sectors and number of sectors values, just press F3 key or select "LBA View" from "View" menu.

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