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Ranish Partition Manager is a freeware hard disk partition editor, disk cloning utility, and boot manager, that gives a high level of control for creating multi-boot systems. [1] [2] It is available on the freeware live CD SystemRescueCD and the Ultimate Boot CD (not the Windows version). It runs under MS-DOS, PC DOS, DR-DOS, or FreeDOS.
RPM can create bit-identical partition clones. (See Speed.)
RPM runs instantly from any of the following:
Aside from tools that can be run from the regularly used operating system, RPM is one of the fastest ways to partition a hard disk, or to restore, clone, or move an operating system.
RPM has not been updated for many years. (It is unknown whether it works with a dynamic disk or a large sector drive.) It has some quirks and display problems, most of which occur when using drives that are much larger than when RPM was written:
Ranish Partition Manager can be used to create a (manual) backup of both the primary partition table and the "extended partition" (table).
Using RPM it is possible to convert logical drives to primary partitions. In RPM this is done by "deleting" the logical drive, moving the beginning of the "extended partition" (type 0x0F) forward, recreating a primary "partition" in the same location as the logical drive, then saving the changes. The process is reversed to convert a primary partition to a logical drive. However, before or after these conversions the partition must deviate from a standard CHS alignment, because logical drives usually start on the second head (head 1) while primary partitions usually start at the beginning of a cylinder.
Most modern operating systems probably would not have problems reading and editing the files on a converted drive but some software used for re-sizing or imaging partitions, may decide to silently "correct" the partition by moving the beginning of the partition (perhaps to conform to a standard CHS alignment) or to conform to a 1-MiB alignment. This re-sizing would not prevent Windows XP from booting, but it might prevent Windows Vista from booting, if the starting sector is moved without updating Vista's boot files. Secondly, if the user is unaware that the partition has been moved, they may not realize that an old backup of the partition table, will be obsolete.
However, there is another possible problem with converting primary partitions into logical drives, unless the primary partitions are made for this purpose. Windows XP Disk Management is known to delete "nonstandard" extended partitions. [7] There must be at least 63 sectors before the primary partition, to allocate for an EBR, in order to make the conversion. For these reasons, it may be preferable, for any primary partition which may be converted to an extended partition, to start them on head 1, instead of at the beginning of the cylinder. The space from the beginning of this cylinder, to head 1, should be free space; the previous partition should end at the end of the last complete cylinder (or at the end of an earlier cylinder).
Starting primary partitions on head 1 (instead of head 0) has another advantage. It allows bit-identical cloning of these primary partitions, to logical drives, making completely normal (usual) logical drives. That is, the EBRs of the logical drives are at the beginning of a cylinder, the logical drive begins on the very next head, and the logical drive ends on a cylinder boundary. However this author has not tested installing or booting operating systems from primary partitions beginning on the head 1, which were not the first partition. (The first partition usually begins on head 1 because this cylinder begins with the master boot record.)
Like most graphical partition editors, GParted is not sector-precise, meaning it will not show the numbers of the sectors or cylinders where partitions are being created. However, it does a few things RPM cannot: GParted can resize partitions with data on them (NTFS, FAT, etc.) and it can format NTFS partitions. Although RPM is able to format FAT partitions, Windows XP had an error on a partition formatted with RPM.
Ranish Partition Manager and GNU Parted (parted) can display all partitions in one CHS format, and both are sector precise, but parted does not show the locations of the EBRs or all the values they contain. In Linux, all this information can be displayed by using sfdisk -us -l -x but the format requires more scrutinizing and doesn't indicate errors/warnings with color, as RPM does. Unlike the command line tools parted or sfdisk, RPMs text user interface allows the user to move the cursor anywhere on the partition table to select what values to change. Parted is riskier and less efficient to use, because it saves every change as soon as it is made, and it takes time to update certain things.
RPM can create partitions manually or using a wizard.
File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system developed for personal computers and was the default file system for the MS-DOS and Windows 9x operating systems. Originally developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, it was adapted for use on hard disks and other devices. The increase in disk drive capacity over time drove modifications to the design that resulted in versions: FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, and exFAT. FAT was replaced with NTFS as the default file system on Microsoft operating systems starting with Windows XP. Nevertheless, FAT continues to be commonly used on relatively small capacity solid-state storage technologies such as SD card, MultiMediaCard (MMC) and eMMC because of its compatibility and ease of implementation.
Disk partitioning or disk slicing is the creation of one or more regions on secondary storage, so that each region can be managed separately. These regions are called partitions. It is typically the first step of preparing a newly installed disk after a partitioning scheme is chosen for the new disk before any file system is created. The disk stores the information about the partitions' locations and sizes in an area known as the partition table that the operating system reads before any other part of the disk. Each partition then appears to the operating system as a distinct "logical" disk that uses part of the actual disk. System administrators use a program called a partition editor to create, resize, delete, and manipulate the partitions. Partitioning allows the use of different filesystems to be installed for different kinds of files. Separating user data from system data can prevent the system partition from becoming full and rendering the system unusable. Partitioning can also make backing up easier. A disadvantage is that it can be difficult to properly size partitions, resulting in having one partition with too much free space and another nearly totally allocated.
Disk formatting is the process of preparing a data storage device such as a hard disk drive, solid-state drive, floppy disk, memory card or USB flash drive for initial use. In some cases, the formatting operation may also create one or more new file systems. The first part of the formatting process that performs basic medium preparation is often referred to as "low-level formatting". Partitioning is the common term for the second part of the process, dividing the device into several sub-devices and, in some cases, writing information to the device allowing an operating system to be booted from it. The third part of the process, usually termed "high-level formatting" most often refers to the process of generating a new file system. In some operating systems all or parts of these three processes can be combined or repeated at different levels and the term "format" is understood to mean an operation in which a new disk medium is fully prepared to store files. Some formatting utilities allow distinguishing between a quick format, which does not erase all existing data and a long option that does erase all existing data.
Logical block addressing (LBA) is a common scheme used for specifying the location of blocks of data stored on computer storage devices, generally secondary storage systems such as hard disk drives. LBA is a particularly simple linear addressing scheme; blocks are located by an integer index, with the first block being LBA 0, the second LBA 1, and so on.
Multi-booting is the act of installing multiple operating systems on a single computer, and being able to choose which one to boot. The term dual-booting refers to the common configuration of specifically two operating systems. Multi-booting may require a custom boot loader.
Cylinder-head-sector (CHS) is an early method for giving addresses to each physical block of data on a hard disk drive.
In computing, data recovery is a process of retrieving deleted, inaccessible, lost, corrupted, damaged, or formatted data from secondary storage, removable media or files, when the data stored in them cannot be accessed in a usual way. The data is most often salvaged from storage media such as internal or external hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), USB flash drives, magnetic tapes, CDs, DVDs, RAID subsystems, and other electronic devices. Recovery may be required due to physical damage to the storage devices or logical damage to the file system that prevents it from being mounted by the host operating system (OS).
The GUID Partition Table (GPT) is a standard for the layout of partition tables of a physical computer storage device, such as a hard disk drive or solid-state drive. It is part of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) standard.
INT 13h is shorthand for BIOS interrupt call 13hex, the 20th interrupt vector in an x86-based computer system. The BIOS typically sets up a real mode interrupt handler at this vector that provides sector-based hard disk and floppy disk read and write services using cylinder-head-sector (CHS) addressing. Modern PC BIOSes also include INT 13h extension functions, originated by IBM and Microsoft in 1992, that provide those same disk access services using 64-bit LBA addressing; with minor additions, these were quasi-standardized by Phoenix Technologies and others as the EDD BIOS extensions.
Apple Partition Map (APM) is a partition scheme used to define the low-level organization of data on disks formatted for use with 68k and PowerPC Macintosh computers. It was introduced with the Macintosh II.
The Logical Disk Manager (LDM) is an implementation of a logical volume manager for Microsoft Windows NT, developed by Microsoft and Veritas Software. It was introduced with the Windows 2000 operating system, and is supported in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 and Windows 11. The MMC-based Disk Management snap-in hosts the Logical Disk Manager. On Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, Microsoft deprecated LDM in favor of Storage Spaces.
An extended boot record (EBR), or extended partition boot record (EPBR), is a descriptor for a logical partition under the common DOS disk drive partitioning system. In that system, when one partition record entry in the master boot record (MBR) is designated an extended partition, then that partition can be subdivided into a number of logical partitions. The actual structure of that extended partition is described by one or more EBRs, which are located inside the extended partition. The first EBR will always be located on the first sector of the extended partition.
TestDisk is a free and open-source data recovery utility that helps users recover lost partitions or repair corrupted filesystems. TestDisk can collect detailed information about a corrupted drive, which can then be sent to a technician for further analysis. TestDisk supports DOS, Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, SunOS, and MacOS. TestDisk handles non-partitioned and partitioned media. In particular, it recognizes the GUID Partition Table (GPT), Apple partition map, PC/Intel BIOS partition tables, Sun Solaris slice and Xbox fixed partitioning scheme. TestDisk uses a command line user interface. TestDisk can recover deleted files with 97% accuracy.
A volume boot record (VBR) is a type of boot sector introduced by the IBM Personal Computer. It may be found on a partitioned data storage device, such as a hard disk, or an unpartitioned device, such as a floppy disk, and contains machine code for bootstrapping programs stored in other parts of the device. On non-partitioned storage devices, it is the first sector of the device. On partitioned devices, it is the first sector of an individual partition on the device, with the first sector of the entire device being a Master Boot Record (MBR) containing the partition table.
In BSD-derived computer operating systems and in related operating systems such as SunOS, a disklabel is a record stored on a data storage device such as a hard disk that contains information about the location of the partitions on the disk. Disklabels were introduced in the 4.3BSD-Tahoe release. Disklabels are usually edited using the disklabel utility. In later versions of FreeBSD, this was renamed as bsdlabel, and finally deprecated since 15.0.
The partition type in a partition's entry in the partition table inside a master boot record (MBR) is a byte value intended to specify the file system the partition contains or to flag special access methods used to access these partitions.
In computing, diskpart is a command-line disk partitioning utility included in Windows 2000 and later Microsoft operating systems, replacing its predecessor, fdisk. The command is also available in ReactOS.
A master boot record (MBR) is a type of boot sector in the first block of partitioned computer mass storage devices like fixed disks or removable drives intended for use with IBM PC-compatible systems and beyond. The concept of MBRs was publicly introduced in 1983 with PC DOS 2.0.
A boot flag is a 1-byte value in a non-extended partition record, within a master boot record. It appears at the beginning of a partition record, as the value 0x80. A value of 0x00 indicates the partition does not have the boot flag set. Any other value is invalid.
The FAT file system is a file system used on MS-DOS and Windows 9x family of operating systems. It continues to be used on mobile devices and embedded systems, and thus is a well-suited file system for data exchange between computers and devices of almost any type and age from 1981 through to the present.
