Patent ID: 6453383
Filing Date: 2002-09-17
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
A computer-implemented method for manipulating disk contents, comprising the steps of:selecting a unit located on at least one drive, the unit containing a plurality of sectors holding user data and system data in at least one volume segment, the selecting step comprising at least one of the following unit selecting steps: selecting a segment; selecting a segmented volume; selecting a segmented partition; selecting a drive containing a segmented partition; and manipulating the selected unit(s) in place to produce at least one modified unit, the manipulating step comprising at least one of the following steps: changing the number of sectors in at least one selected unit; decreasing the cluster size in at least one selected unit; merging two selected volume segments to produce a single volume segment; consolidating a selected volume by gathering segments onto a single drive through some combination of resizing and/or moving; scattering selected segments differently among several drives; redistributing data between selected segments by moving data from one segment to another segment; moving a selected segment without necessarily moving the surrounding partition and the other partition contents; and copying a selected segment without necessarily copying the surrounding partition and the other partition contents.