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SDR Recover This Computer Wizard Help

Last Published: 2018-04-02

Product(s): Backup Exec (20.1)

Recover This Computer Wizard Help

Advanced Disk Configuration on the Recover This Computer Wizard

The Recover This Computer Wizard restores the hard drive volumes to the same sizes they were before the disaster. If the hard drive in the failed computer is larger than the hard drive that was in place before the disaster, it may result in unused and unallocated space. You can run Advanced Disk Configuration to alter the volume sizes to reflect the larger hard drive size.

The following is an example of why the hard drive volumes should be resized:

The pre-disaster computer hardware contains a 40 GB hard drive with two 20-GB volumes. You replace it with a 90-GB model. SDR then uses the disaster recovery information file to rebuild the hard disk partition table by using the partition information that is found on the original 40-GB hard drive. As a result, only 40 GB of space is allocated on the new 90 GB hard drive, with a partition map that consists of two 20-GB partitions.

You can access Advanced Disk Configuration from within the Recover This Computer Wizard.

Note:

You should be familiar with Microsoft Disk Management concepts before you run Advanced Disk Configuration.

The following table provides details about the additional disk-related operations that you can do with Advanced Disk Configuration.

Table: Advanced Disk Configuration tasks

Task	Description
Create a simple volume	A simple volume is a partition on a disk that contains a file system. See Creating a simple volume.
Format a volume	Disk volumes must be formatted before data can be stored on them. See Formatting a volume.
Extend the size of a volume	If a disk contains some unallocated disk space that is adjacent to a functional volume, you can extend the volume to include the free space. To extend the volume, it must be either raw or formatted with the Windows NTFS file system. See Extending the size of a volume.
Shrink the size of a volume	You can decrease the size of a volume by shrinking the volume into the contiguous, unallocated disk space that is on the same disk. When you shrink a volume, there is no need to reformat the volume. Ordinary files are automatically relocated on the disk to create the new, unallocated disk space. See Shrinking the size of a volume.
Create a spanned volume	A spanned volume spans more than one physical disk. You can create a spanned volume by spanning it across multiple physical disks, or by spanning the volume into unallocated disk space. To create a spanned volume, you must have a startup volume and at least two dynamic volumes. Note: Spanned volumes are not fault-tolerant. See About spanned volumes.
Create a striped volume	Striped volumes store data in stripes across two or more physical disks. Although striped volumes do not provide fault-tolerance protection, they do offer the best performance of all the volumes in Windows. See Creating a striped volume.
Create a mirrored volume	A mirrored volume provides a copy of the data that is written to a selected volume. Because all data is written to both the mirrored volume and the selected volume, mirroring reduces the capacity of both volumes by 50%. See Creating a mirrored volume.
View volume properties	You can view properties for each volume in the Current Disk Layout view or in the Original Disk Layout view. See Viewing volume properties.
Change an assigned drive letter	You can change assigned drive letters for all volumes if you want to organize your drive letters in a certain way. See Changing an assigned drive letter.
Delete a volume	Deleting a volume erases all data from the volume; therefore, it is recommended that you use caution when considering the use of this option. See Deleting a volume.
Convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk	Converting basic disks to dynamic disks lets you create the volumes that span multiple disks. Dynamic disks also let you create fault-tolerant volumes, such as mirrored volumes and RAID-5 volumes. All volumes on dynamic disks are referred to as dynamic volumes. See Converting a basic disk to a dynamic disk.
Convert a Master Boot Record (MBR) disk to a Guid Partition Table (GPT) disk	MBR disks use the standard BIOS interface. GPT disks use extensible firmware interface (EFI). You can convert MBR disks to GPT disks if the disk does not contain partitions or volumes. See Converting a Master Boot Record (MBR) disk to a Guid Partition Table (GPT) disk.
Convert a Guid Partition Table (GPT) disk to a Master Boot Record (MBR) disk	GPT disks use extensible firmware interface (EFI). Master boot record (MBR) disks use the standard BIOS interface. GPT disks can be converted to MBR disks if the disk does not contain partitions or volumes. See Converting a Guid Partition Table (GPT) disk to a Master Boot Record (MBR) disk.
View the original disk layout geometry	The original disk layout shows the actual hard disk layout that existed during the backup job. Within the simplified layout view, you can accept the disk geometry as it originally existed before the disaster, or you can alter the geometry by changing the volume sizes. Depending on the size of the existing disks, you can alter volume sizes in megabytes, gigabytes, or terabytes. The simplified layout view has a Preview tab that lets you view the disk geometry as it presently exists. If you change the disk geometry and change volume sizes, click the Preview tab to see a graphical representation of your proposed changes. If mismatched volumes appear in the simplified volume layout view, you can use the option Erase hard disks and recreate the volume layout shown above to automatically create a volume layout on the available hard disks. You can also manually create a volume layout by using the Advanced Disk Configuration option.