<h2>Getting Information on Disks and Backup Images </h2>
<p>The program provides some helpful tools to get information on the properties
of disks and peculiarities of existing <A class="glossterm" href="javascript:kadovTextPopup(this)" id="HotSpot15746">backup</A><span class=glosstext style="display: 'none';" id=POPUP15746 > The term backup originates from the time when the best way to protect valuable information was to store it in form of archives on external media. It's become now a general notion to mean making duplications of data for protection purposes.</span> images.</p>
<h3 class="whs1">Viewing Disk Properties
</h3>
<p>The main tool to view in-depth information on the properties of hard
disks is the <a href="Interface_Overview.htm#Disk_Map">Disk Map</a>. It
represents the actual state of the computerÆs hard disks.<br>
<br>
Generally the hard disks are represented on the map by rectangular bars,
which also contain small-sized bars. The small-sized bars represent logical
disks (partitions). When you select a large-sized bar, the <a href="Interface_Overview.htm#_Explorer_Bar">Explorer
Bar</a> displays information about the disk in a bright, graphical form.<br>
The model and <A class="glossterm" href="javascript:kadovTextPopup(this)" id="HotSpot31767">serial number</A><span class=glosstext style="display: 'none';" id=POPUP31767 > In the DOS partitioning scheme, every hard disk and every partition has a 32-bit serial number represented by an 8-figure hexadecimal value. It is stored in the MBR and its value is assigned when the MBR sector is initialized by Microsoft standard disk managing tools, such as Windows Disk Administrator and the FDISK utility. In fact, a hard disk's serial number is not important for most operating systems and software. It is known that Windows NT, 2000 and XP store its value in the database of assigned drive letters. A partition's serial number is stored in its boot sector (in FAT16, FAT32 and NFTS file systems). Its value is assigned when the partition is formatted. It does not play an important role for most operating systems and software as well.</span> of the disk serve as the title of the browsed
page. The disk layout is shown in form of a circular graph, where the
color of a sector corresponds to a file system of an appropriate partition.
On the right you may see a table, which contains the following information:</p>
style="font: 7.0pt 'Times New Roman';"><font size=1 style="font-size:7pt;">
</font></span></font></span><A class="glossterm" href="javascript:kadovTextPopup(this)" id="HotSpot28989">Volume label</A><span class=glosstext style="display: 'none';" id=POPUP28989 > or Partition Label is a small textual field (up to 11 characters) that is located in the partition's boot sector. This value is used for notification purposes only. It is detectable by any partitioning tool including the DOS FDISK utility. Modern operating systems save it within a file system, e.g. as a special hidden file. Thus it is able to contain a relatively large amount of text in multiple languages.</span> (if available),</p>
<p><A class="glossterm" href="javascript:kadovTextPopup(this)" id="HotSpot39861">MBR</A><span class=glosstext style="display: 'none';" id=POPUP39861 > is the 0th sector of the disk. MBR (Master Boot Record) contains important information about the disk layout: - The used partitioning scheme; - The starting records of the Partition Table; - The standard bootstrap code (or the initial code of boot managers, disk overlay software or boot viruses). Generally, the 0th sector is used for similar purposes in all existing partitioning schemes. The MBR capacity is not sufficient to contain sophisticated boot programs. That's why the on-boot software is allowed to use the entire 0th track of the disk. For example, boot managing utilities such as LILO, GRUB and Paragon Boot Manager are located in the 0th track.</span> archive</td></tr>