Select Disk

Physical disk selection

Your first step is to select a physical disk or, if it exists, a state file. Selecting a state file will automatically select the corresponding physical disk as well. Once a physical disk is selected you can perform the desired task(s) on the disk: repair partition tables, scan a disk etc. The disk that is selected is also considered the *source* disk for the disk cloning feature.

Disk Selection

ByteBack D.R.I.S.^TM will only detect the first 4 physical disks in the system! If more disks are present and the disk needing repairs is not among the first 4, you will need to (temporarily) disconnect other hard disks. ByteBack D.R.I.S.^TM lists disks in the order they are reported by the system and uses the system assigned (decimal) values to address them (the first physical hard disk is normally assigned the value 128, the second 129 etc.).

Selecting the disk that you want to work with

To select a disk for analysis, select [Select Disk] from the main menu. ByteBack D.R.I.S.^TM will display a list of hard disks that are detected on your system. If you have already scanned the disk during a previous session, you can instead load the State File that was created during that scan. Select [Load StateFile] and select the appropriate State File from the list: State Files are linked to one specific hard disk, select the file that is connected to the disk that was scanned.

Press <Enter> to select a disk or state file. The Status Window in the main screen will now display for "Current Disk:" the disk number, followed by either (DSK) when the disk was directly selected or (STT) when a statefile was selected.

You can also load a statefile, if the disk was scanned earlier

Considerations when selecting a hard disk:

If the hard disk contents have changed since the last scan (after a repair for example) you're advised to re-scan the disk rather than loading a state file. Specific conditions and events will cause ByteBack D.R.I.S.^TM to declare a statefile invalid. When you try to load such a statefile ByteBack D.R.I.S.^TM will display an error message.
If the victim disk was originally partitioned in another system, geometry 'conflicts' may occur, in which case you may need to make ByteBack D.R.I.S.^TM aware of the disk geometry as it was in the original system. Use [Tools], [Set Custom Geo] to do so. More information on disk geometry can be found here.

Important! If repairs were made in a system using a different geometry and you use 'custom geometry settings', it is assumed that after you have completed the repairs, the hard disk is moved back to the original system. In other words, ByteBack D.R.I.S.^TM can NOT be used to 'convert' a disk to a different geometry than the one the disk was originally partitioned under.

About State Files

When an 'analyze & repair' disk scan has completed, all the information that was gathered during the scan is saved to a State File. A State File can be loaded later so you don't have to scan the entire disk again. For instance, it is possible to scan the disk in ByteBack D.R.I.S.^TM Demo mode, then purchase a full version and load the State File that was created by the Demo version. This can save considerable amounts of time.
There are some things to keep in mind though :

when loading a state file, make sure the disk contents have not changed since the previous scan
when an automatic repair has finished the state file for that disk is trashed and can no longer be used; the disk contents have changed so you must re-scan the disk