DD11 lost WIPE and HIDE functions?

That's correct. Acronis has removed some of (what they consider are) the "more advanced" features of DD 10. These features are supposed to be included in the Advanced version of DD 11. Whether any of them make it back into the Home version remains to be seen.

Hi MudCrab,

I too am VERY interested in having these functions remain with DD 11.

Are they in the released version?

Any comments about DD11 and OSS 11?

Thanks,

Jerry

Jerry,

I haven't had much time yet to try OSS 11. Currently, it looks like it does find standard Windows 7 installations okay, but it may have problems with modified setups. For example, it didn't find a Windows 7 system with a generalized BCD file.

Due to the fact that OSS was added back into DD 11 at such a late date, very few changes were made to OSS (one being Windows 7 detection).

OSS 11 also requires OSS 10 to be uninstalled before it can install. Custom setups or manually added OSS menu entries may still need added back.

Hi, MudCrab

Acronis has removed some of (what they consider are) the "more advanced" features of DD 10.

What can one say about that, other then a update to an inferior product, I hope they are joking.

My first Product was Acronis Recovery Expert (English) June 6, 2003, in total I have 19 Registered products over the past seven years.

Look like the seven year itch for me.

Take Care
TheQuest 8)

I think Acronis might have looked at the parts of DD that were causing the most problems (perhaps one extra reason why OSS was not intended to see the light of day in DD11) and decided that if majority of users just used the basic functions of disk manipulation and of course that many might also own an Acronis imaging product which does have the wipe function built in it would give them the opportunity to consolidate core functions into a basic version and perhaps make a 'advanced' version available at a later stage for those who like ultimate fiddling and possibly more likely be able to cope when something goes awry.

Of course it is also an attractive idea from a marketing point of view as well :) .

Hi MudCrab,

I am also having problems with DD/OSS 11 as outlined in http://forum.acronis.com/forum/11673.

Having HIDE/UnHIDE functions in DD 11 could have helped.

Jerry

Jerry,

I feel that having the Hide/Unhide option is important, especially when using OSS. I don't even know if OSS is going to be included with the Advanced vesions.

Because Acronis removed this feature, users can no longer be instructed to "fix things" with OSS deactivated. And because OSS wasn't full updated, it still needs fixing. When OSS is deactivated or uninstalled, users will be left with partitions hidden/unhidden and not be able to easily change them. This basically makes "manual booting" of isolated operating systems impossible with DD 11.

MudCrab wrote:

That's correct. Acronis has removed some of (what they consider are) the "more advanced" features of DD 10. These features are supposed to be included in the Advanced version of DD 11. Whether any of them make it back into the Home version remains to be seen.

When will be released this "advanced version" with HIDE and WIPE functions?

Seems to me that this a poor way to treat old loyal users.
Splitting DD into home and advanced may make corporate sense, BUT......

BTW - just tried out BootIt NG and it looks like the people at Acronis should
take a HARD look at the way IT operates!

Jerry

Rafael Figueiredo,

I don't know when the Advanced version of DD will be released. I hope it will be soon.

---

Jerry,

Remember, OSS was originally not going to be included any more. It was going to be discontinued. Acronis added it back after many users requested it. Because they didn't want to delay the release of DD 11 Home longer, OSS was not completely updated. Now that it will again be a "current" product, hopefully it will be fixed soon.

Money makes the world go 'round?
Let's have DD11, DD11 Advanced, DD11 Advanced for beginners and one version for advancers.
shaking my head.

mbathen wrote:

Money makes the world go 'round?
Let's have DD11, DD11 Advanced, DD11 Advanced for beginners and one version for advancers.
shaking my head.

It's really no different to Perfect Disk standard and Pro, AVG, McAfee, Eset (Consumer/ Business), SQL Express/SQL Server, MS Studio Express/MS Studio editions, MS Windows Home/Pro/Enterprise, hobbled free compilers versus paid for full versions - just different names for the same plot.

Acronis aren't being ground breaking in this concept.

If they had announced both versions from the bginning, I had decided to buy Advanced version. Now I have a piece of software which must be upgraded once more. And I have to pay once more.

mbathen wrote:

If they had announced both versions from the bginning, I had decided to buy Advanced version. Now I have a piece of software which must be upgraded once more. And I have to pay once more.

I see your point.

OTOH there were many pleas for a new version, so I suppose they thought, get a basic one out there as quickly as possible and then concentrate on an advanced version. Hopefully, this will also gove some breathing space to 'tart up' OSS concerns that have been mentioned in DD11 threads.

Acronis DriveCleanser and File Shredder is a part of True Image 2010, but hide partition is mia
and its kinda annoying that disk director 11 has a diffrent interface than true image 2010, acronis should make the disk director 11 interface the default on true image 2011 or something, true image 2010 looks like FAT compared to disk director 11 ;)

but removing futures that was in older versions is BAD for customers, customer will just look elsewhere like a competitor...

meybe this can be a comprise basicly give those that upgrades from a older version the ability to use hide/wipe and those that buy new dont get it ;)

that way its win-win for upgraders and acronis, it gives people a good reason to upgrade instead of going elsewhere

I am no expert, but (despite my admitted confusion in another post), I am of the belief that "Hide/unhide" functionality still exists in DD11.

Take, for example, an NTFS partition:

If a partition is formatted or otherwise made to be Type-07, then Windows, DD, etc... all see it as an unhidden NTFS partition.

If that same partition were to be formatted as Type-17, then Windows, DD, etc... would all recognize it as a hidden NTFS partition.

Using DD11's "Change partition type" one can, for example, change an "07 NTFS partition" to an "17 NTFS hidden partition" and it appears to have the same effect as Hide/unhide.

Now, someone who knows more than me please chime in here... but didn't the"hide" option in DD10 and below merely simplify the above? changing the partition type for us automatically instead of manually?

Again, using NTFS as example (FAT, linux, etc... are NOT type 07 or 17, so be careful)...
In DD10, if I chose the "hide" option on an NTFS partition and committed the change, I could then go into the Disk Editor and under the "Partition Table" view, I would actually be able to see that partition's type and it would have changed from 07 to 17. I could then go back the main DD window and click "unhide". Then, after I "commit" the change, I could pop back into Disk Editor and see that the same partition had been reset back to Type-07.

What I don't know, is whether the Hide/Unhide option did anything in addition to changing the partition type. If it did, then DD11's Change Partition Type option would not be equal to DD10's Hide/Unhide option.

Thoughts?

So far as I know, XORing 0x10 to the partition type byte is effectively what is done, and nothing is changed except this byte in the partition table when hiding/unhiding a partition in DD10. So it sound right to me.

loox:

Yes, you are correct. As Gary has said, that's all that "hide" does. But this isn't obvious to most people who would be using the program.

There is just one problem, Changing from 07 to 17 to hide partitions just does not work!. I have gone through all the steps, correctly, using the bootable CD and then verified the results using DD10 bootable CD and what I find is that DD11 lies about the current partitions status and when asked does not change it to what is required. I suspect that this will also cause issues with OS Selector as when I tried this out it took me a day (ish) to recover all the OS's on my hard disk.

Right now DD11 is about as useful to me as a chocolate teapot, it just does not do what it is supposed to!

I haven't tried ti with the bootable media, but it does work with the Windows based version.

No the windows based version lies about the partitions status - it tells me that a hidden partition is visible!

Where is the Pri,Act,Hid (status) column that was in DD10? - and as others have said we need the "easy" way to hide/unhide a partition i.e. a menu option not a long scrollable list of partition types. DD11 should know what partition type it is dealing with and the hide/unhide option (if available for that partition type) should be carried out when used. If it is not available then the option should be greyed out.

An "easy" means for hiding/unhiding partitions is to use the free MBRWizard command line utility http://mbrwizard.com/ at least under Windows or WinPE. It also has a wipedisk function and other useful things.

RayG wrote:

No the windows based version lies about the partitions status - it tells me that a hidden partition is visible!

Apologies if you already know this, but:

If by "it" you mean the Windows version of DD11, then that is normal... a hidden partition should be visible to DD11.

Or do you mean that the partition is visible to everything, even Windows (with a drive letter assigned)?

If you mean that DD11 from the CD reports the partition as hidden and set to 17h while DD11 reports it as 07h in Windows, then that is a good question because that shouldn't be the case. This should be impossible and thus you should open a ticket with Acronis so that they are aware of the problem; they'd want to know.

loox

I have three partitions on one disk.

1 Windows 7
2 Windows Vista
3 Windows XP

None of the OS's in those partitions know about the others so when partition 1 is visible partitions 2 & 3 are hidden. The same goes when I want to run the other OS's e.g. if partition 2 is visible them 1 & 3 are hidden. If running partition 3 then 1 & 2 are hidden.

It does not matter if I run DD11 from Windows 7 or from the CD it NEVER shows a partition as hidden they always show as 07.

If I try to change the state of a partition using DD11 it does not in fact change the state of the partition. The only thing that appears to work is changing the Active partition. Hiding and unhiding (changing from 07 to 17 or vice versa) do nothing - this as confirmed by running DD10 after attempting a change with DD11.

I hope that clears up what I meant/see.

RayG,

When you used DD 11 to change the hidden status, did you try doing it twice? I've noticed in Windows 7 that the first time I change a partition to 17h it doesn't work. If I immediately try again, it does and DD 11 will then show the partition as 17h. I've verified the partition was hidden by booting to the DD 10 CD. I don't know if this works in all cases, though.

Hi MudCrab,

No I have not tried that but if that is the case then it really is a bug that needs fixing - Acronis???

But that still does not explain why partitions that are shown correctly as hidden in DD10 show up as type 07 when viewed in DD11. Without reliable reporting I am not happy using this software.

I suspect that since Acronis removed the feature from DD 11, hiding partitions is not going to function it a way that's very useful.

I've noticed that DD 10 seems to do something differently with hiding partitions. For example, if you select to change the hidden partition's type in DD 10, it shows as 07h. However, if you look in the partition table it's 17h. DD 10 knows that a 17h partition is NTFS and shows 07h as the type, even though it's not actually the current type.

DD 11 may be doing something similar -- somtimes showing the actual type (17h) and sometimes [mostly] showing the "base" type (07h). Even if you get DD 11 to actually apply the type change, it doesn't seem to correctly show the change later (reboot and it's back to 07h even though it's still 17h in the partition table). This means that you can't reliably use DD 11 for tracking/viewing/changing the hidden status.

But in DD10 there is a flag column that correctly shows the status - see attached image. That is what is required in DD11 as well as reliable operation!

Yes, but the feature was removed. I agree that it's not good to have it removed (especially since OSS was added back), but that's what they did.

DD 11 will show the "Flags" information split between the "Type" and "Status" columns. Hidden status is not displayed.

Just had a support call from Acronis and they stated that the hide/unhide options in DD11 have been removed so it should not work whatever way you try it.

So why do they even list the option!

Even given they removed the function it should still report the truth - which it does not.

I am waiting for the support engineer to let me know what they are going to do about it.

I have to say that ATIH2010 and DD11 for me are a real disaster. Looking at the ATIH2001 Beta I am not sure things have improved as yet.

Hello,

For me too, "advanced" functions are some tools necessary for a software to manage partitions.
When Acronis enable again all advanced functions (ex hide partition) ????

Regards
Laurent

Hallo
Wann kommt jetzt ein Update damit man wieder wie gewohnt arbeiten kann ( Partition verstecken, aktiv setzten) und der OSS ist so unbrauchbar.

Gruß
Karl

I wish I saw this thread before "upgrading" to DD10! This is completely useless. Why would you want DD11 if you already have DD10?

Does anybody know when the "advanced" (a version that may be worth having) version will be here?