What's the use of Acronis Disk Director (within PD4)?

[Gaytan]

Hello,

Can anyone tell me the use of Acronis Disk Director within the Parallels Desktop 4 environment?
The only thing one can do with this piece of software is 'messing up your system' or ....?
I'm talking about the Bootcamp Parallels environment of course... I've not tried / tested it (as yet) within a real VM as I have my WinXP within the Bootcamp installation.

I also doubt the 'the use' of Acronis True Image on a Mac really.

I do know the two software programs very well as I used to use them on my XP pc a lot!

Anyone?

Kind regards,

Gaytan
The Netherlands

 

[Anna Pichueva]

Hello Gaytan,

Acronis Disk Director Suite gives you better Windows data allocation, performance and data protection in a VM or in Boot Camp.

 

[Gaytan]

Hi,

Thanks for your answer!

All I see in Disk Director when I start it up is: GUID 'this' and GUID 'that'; not revealing which partition holds which OS.
I do not dare to use it! And I always use(d) it on my XP pc!
....

Rgrds,

 

[DominicP]

All I see in Disk Director when I start it up is: GUID 'this' and GUID 'that'; not revealing which partition holds which OS.
I do not dare to use it!

Wise choice. See this thread, discussing the "unsupported hard drives" issue.

The problem, I believe, is in trying to use Acronis with a Boot Camp partition, whether directly or via a Parallels VM linked to your Boot Camp partition. The Acronis tools (likely) work OK when installed and used within a virtual hd Parallels VM (where the MBR still rules, virtually), but they're not equipped to deal with GPT partitioning, introduced with Apple's shift to Intel processors.

Parallel's KB articles for installation of Disk Director and True Image incorrectly note that installation to "a virtual machine based on Boot Camp is also not possible." The installers may not allow installation of either when booted into Boot Camp, but I can tell you that you definitely *can* install both in a Parallels Boot Camp VM. There's just no reason to do so, though, since they can't work with the Boot Camp partition.

So, the Acronis tools are good-to-go for virtual hd Parallels VMs, but you'll need other tools to work with (backup, resize) the Boot Camp partition.