Acronis Disk Director Chops Volumes and Handles Multiple OSs

For a regular user there are simple solutions to manage hard disks and chop them into volumes ready to cover your needs. In this regard Microsoft provides Disk Management console, its own bread and butter, which allows for basic operations like resizing volumes, marking partitions as active or creating volumes from unallocated space. But everybody knows that this tool comes with limited functionality, volume merging and creating more than 4 partitions is denied, to name a few.

There are different, feature-rich solutions on the market ready to tackle what Disk Management is misses and offer multiple slice and dice options. However, Acronis Disk Director 11 Home takes it to the next level, proposing a rack of advanced instruments that can also be of help when you’re working with multiple operating systems.

Acronis Disk Director 11 Home sells for $59.49. You can test the application for as long as you want if you don’t mind the 100MB limit for the drives you try the app on. If the volumes are larger the application won’t work at all. Keep this in mind before trying the application, otherwise you’re going to stare at the set of options, which you can very well do without going through the installation process of the program.

Just by taking a look at the simple interface while having selected a drive you will notice that Acronis Disk Director comes prepared for all sorts of jobs you may need: from volume resizing, moving, copying, merging or splitting, to adding mirror drives, converting to different partition types or changing to different file system and defragmenting.

Despite the large number of choices available, there is nothing cumbersome about the interface or working with the program. All the volumes available on the system are presented in a clear manner, accompanied by information like total capacity, amount of free space, volume type and file system. The disk management options stacked in the left hand part of the application window are displayed as soon as you select a partition. They will also be shown when you right-click a volume in the list or the graphical representation in the lower part of the screen.



In order to offer the utmost level of functionality, Acronis Disk Director 11 Home combines its own set of tools with some of Windows’. For instance, the application will appeal to the toolbox available in the operating system when it comes to checking volumes for errors or for defragmenting purposes.

However, there are some instruments in the program you won’t find in just about any software of this kind. The Recovery Expert lets you completely recover deleted volumes or can lend a hand if your computer becomes unbootable, allowing you to recover critical system areas and make PC bootable again, basically restore it to a healthier state.

Another instrument available in Disk Director’s toolshed is the bootable media builder, which can be used to run Acronis Disk Director offline. During the tests we also had True Image Home installed on the system and while creating the bootable media (ISO, CD/DVD or bootable USB stick) with Disk Director we were given the possibility to create bootable media that included both applications. This feature practically allows you to carry both the backup and disk management component on a stick or CD/DVD.

Working with any of the options on the list of the application is no tough job. The developer made sure that everything is as easy as pie and users have no trouble understanding the consequences of the chosen options. The results of this endeavor are the intuitive screen for any of the selected operations; whether you’re using the volume split function, resizing or moving/copying it entirely, or changing partition type, you won’t be hindered in your actions by specific terminology because it is thoroughly explained in plain English.



The simple operations of modifying a volume’s size or disposing unallocated space before or after it require no effort whatsoever from the user. In the available menu you can set the new size either manually from the appropriate boxes or play with the graphical display by dragging the volume to expand or shrink it or simply moving it to the left/right according to how you want unallocated space to be available.

Just like in other similar software, Acronis Disk Director does not apply the changes as soon as you make them; it can store multiple commands in order to execute them all at once. However, multiple operations targeting the same volume is denied. What this means is that you won’t be able to split a partition and convert its type (from logical to primary or vice-versa) in a single pass. These operations have to be ran one at a time if they affect the same partition, but you can assign operations to multiple volumes, though.

All operations you instruct the program to commit are considered pending and wait for your signal to be applied. However, as soon as you select an action the volume structure modifies accordingly, giving insight in what the things will look like once modifications are applied. However, you have access to a list of all pending actions before any change occurs. Click on “Commit pending operations” button and you’ll be presented with the set of operations. You can change your mind about one of them and use the “undo” button which eliminates the actions in reverse order.

Using Acronis Recovery Expert is no more difficult than working with Disk Director. While using this instrument you’ll be guided by a wizard that explains the options presented in each window. There are two recovery modes, automatic and manual, which you can select depending on your knowledge of the location of the lost partition. Automatic mode initiates a search for deleted volumes on all connected hard disks while manual mode lets you choose the storage device you want to be scanned - this mode also lets you pick the search method: fast, which searches only the first sectors of cylinders, or complete for a more thorough investigation.



The bootable version of Acronis Disk Director can be obtained by using the built-in Media Builder utility. It allows you to select the Acronis components you want to place on bootable media such as CD/DVD or USB drives. This enables you to benefit from the functionality of the application before booting into Windows.

The rather elaborated possibilities available when creating such media allow choosing between Linux-based or Windows PE. For the latter you need to download the appropriate Windows Automated Installation Kit depending on the Windows PE version you want to build.

We went with Linux-based type as we are already familiar with the environment and it is a more comfortable choice, because you don’t have to download anything. In this case you can pick Linux or Windows-like representation, whichever feels more convenient. If you have other bootable Acronis components installed on the system, like Acronis True Image, they are displayed and can be added to the bootable media. The entire process does not take too long, regardless if you choose to place the files on a USB key, burn them to CD/DVD or just build an ISO file out of them.



Acronis OS Selector is one instrument you won’t find very often in such programs. The component installs separately from the Start Menu folder of Acronis Disk Director and it is a full featured boot loader. It comes in extremely handy if multiple operating systems are available on your machine. Its functionality eliminates the need to appeal to Windows boot loader, as it permits you to manage booting of multiple operating systems on the same machine, regardless of partition or hard disk. Moreover, it can deal with multiple operating systems on the same partition.

In order to complete Acronis OS Selector installation a computer restart is required. After that the boot loader will pop up at each boot of the machine allowing you to choose the OS you want to load. The functionality of this tool extends through the set of options it features. To make things easier on you Acronis boot loader can be configured to automatically boot the default OS and show Selector menu only when ESC key is tapped, or impose a timeout limit.

Password protection of the boot menu can be enforced when OS Selector is not instructed to load the default operating system. Also, configuration settings can be secured with a passphrase so that changes can be operated only by authorized persons.



The Good

The complete documentation and the intuitive, free of clutter menus eliminate any chance of turning Acronis Disk Director into a tough nut to crack. The application features a complete rack of options whose availability is determined by the volume selected.

Besides the rich array of disk management options that let you chop volumes to new dimensions as well as convert their type and file system without having to reboot the computer (except for system drive), Acronis Disk Director provides tools for recovering deleted partitions or handle multiple OS boot options. Additionally, the application can be used offline by booting it from media like USB drive or CD/DVD.

OS Selector lets you install different copies of the same operating system on the same partition by protecting system files and folders so that any conflict is eliminated. Also, the range of supported OSs includes all major versions of Windows (95 to 7), the most popular Linux and UNIX distributions.

The Bad

OS Selector does not come with VHD support and once installed will eliminate any option for booting from a VHD image.

The Truth

For a regular user that does not handle multiple operating systems and does not have to deal with disk partitioning too often Acronis Disk Director Home may be seen as a waste of money. There are other alternatives on the market that encompass most of the disk management options it makes available. But its functionality is completed by the other components it brings to the table: OS Selector, Bootable Media Builder and Recovery Expert. The three of them combined with its disk management abilities make for a great disk manipulation suite with OS handling skills. It goes without saying that professionals are the main target of this software.

This article is also available in Spanish: Acronis Disk Director para gestionar particiones y múltiples sistemas operativos

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