Managing Disks and Volumes

Formatting disks and converting their file system is all very well - but what if you need to create or delete a partition or volume? For these tasks, Windows provides a tool called Disk Management.

Starting Disk Management

Take the following steps to start Disk Management:

1. Choose Start Control Panel. Windows displays Control Panel.

2. In Control Panel Home view, click the System and Maintenance link. Windows displays the System and Maintenance window.

3. In the Administrative Tools list, click the Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions link, and then authenticate yourself to User Account Control. Windows displays the Disk Management window .

Start Disk Management Using the RunCommand

If you prefer not to go through the Control Panel, you can start Disk Management via the Run command:

1. Press Windows Key+R. Windows displays the Run dialog box.

2. Type diskmgmt.msc in the Run dialog box, and then press Enter. As you can see the top section of the Disk Management window lists the volumes currently defined on the system, giving the following information about each volume:

Column Explanation

Volume The letter for the volume for example, C: and any name assigned to the volume for example, a memory card is named EXTRAMEMORY. Layout The volume’s layout - whether it’s a full disk or a partition. Type The volume type basic or dynamic. File System The file system FAT, FAT32, NTFS, CDFS, UDF, and so on. Status The volume’s status - for example, Healthy Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition for a boot volume in good condition containing a page file and a crash dump. Capacity The capacity in megabytes, gigabytes, or larger units. Free Space The amount of free space, in megabytes, gigabytes, or larger units. % Free The percentage of the volume free. Fault Tolerance Whether fault tolerance is used on the volume. Overhead The overhead consumed by fault tolerance if it’s used.

Below this list, Disk Management shows a graphical representation of each physical disk attached to the computer and how it’s broken down. Here’s what you see:

• Disk 0 is the first hard disk because computer counting begins at 0 rather than 1. It contains a 127.99GB NTFS D: drive, a 38.00GB NTFS E: drive, and a 20.32GB NTFS C: drive.

• Disk 1 contains EXTRAMEMORY F:, a removable disk containing a 92MB FAT partition. This is a CompactFlash card with a nominal capacity of 96MB.

• Disks 2 and 4 drives G: and I: are removable disk drives that are currently empty.

• Disk 3 contains GIGACARD H:, a removable disk containing a 965MB FAT partition. This is an SD card with a nominal capacity of 1GB.

• CDROM 0 which appears too far down the window to be visible contains a DVD that is assigned to drive E:.

Expert Knowledge: Dynamic Disks and Fault Tolerance

That bit about basic disks and dynamic disks may have raised your eyebrows a bit - especially since Disk Management shows that your computer has basic disks. But don’t worry - the term refers to the disk’s configuration rather than to its capabilities. If you bought the largest and fastest hard drive on the block, it’ll still be the largest and fastest until the engineers release something better, no matter that it uses the basic disk configuration.

A basic disk is one configured to support primary partitions, an extended partition, and logical drives within that extended partition. A dynamic disk is one configured so that you can use fault tolerance or create multidisk volumes on the fly. You can’t create dynamic disks in Windows Vista Home Edition, but because Windows Vista Home Edition borrows the Disk Management tool from Windows Vista’s Business editions and from Windows Server, Disk Management shows the disk type for Windows Vista Home Edition too.

Fault tolerance is a feature typically implemented only in servers or high-end workstations. It uses multiple disks to avoid the possible loss of information when disk problems occur. Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista Ultimate Edition implement software fault tolerance through a redundant array of inexpensive disks RAID. Fault tolerance involves overhead - extra space used to keep extra copies of information so that it isn’t lost if hardware fails.

Creating a Volume

If you have free space available, you can create a volume in it, as in the following example. The options available to you depend on your disk configuration.

1. Right-click the free space and choose New Simple Volume from the context menu. Disk Management starts the New Simple Volume Wizard, which displays its Welcome page.

2. Click the Next button. The wizard displays the Specify Volume Size page .

3.In the Simple Volume Size in MB text box, enter the size of volume you want to create. The wizard suggests using all the space available, which you may not want to do. The readout above the text box shows the minimum and maximum sizes possible.

4. Click the Next button. The wizard displays the Assign Drive Letter or Path page see Figure 10.21.

5. Leave the Assign the Following Drive Letter option button selected and specify the letter in the drop-down list.

• Instead of assigning a drive letter, you can select the Mount in the Following Empty NTFS Folder option button and specify the folder in the text box. See the next sidebar for a discussion of this option.

• Instead of doing either of the above, you can avoid assigning a drive letter or path by selecting the Do Not Assign a Drive Letter or Drive Path option button. The only reason to do this is if you’re planning to assign letters or paths later after creating other partitions. To access the partition through the Windows interface for example, from Explorer or from an application, you’ll need to assign a drive letter or path to it sooner or later - and it may as well be sooner.

6. Click the Next button. The wizard displays the Format Partition page .

7. Leave the Format This Volume with the Following Settings option button selected and choose settings:

• Choose the file system preferably NTFS, but FAT32 or FAT if necessary in the File System drop-down list.

• Leave the Allocation Unit Size drop-down list set to Default unless you’ve got a very good reason to change it.

• Type the label for the volume in the Volume Label text box. The wizard suggests New Volume, but you should be able to come up with something more descriptive. You can use up to 20 characters for the label on an NTFS volume and 11 characters for that on a FAT or FAT32 volume.

• Select the Perform a Quick Format check box if you’ve checked the disk for errors recently and found none. If not, it’s better to perform a full format, including the check for errors.

• Select the Enable File and Folder Compression check box if you want to use compression on the volume. Compression lets you pack more files onto the volume assuming that the files aren’t already fully compressed but degrades performance a little.

8. Click the Next button. The wizard displays the Completing the New Simple Volume Wizard page, which summarizes the choices you’ve made.

9. Click the Finish button. The wizard closes, creates the volume, formats it, and displays an Explorer window showing the volume’s contents nothing.

Expert Knowledge: Mounting a Volume in an Empty NTFS Folder

Instead of assigning a drive letter to a volume, you can mount the volume in an empty NTFS folder. Doing so has a couple of advantages:

• You can connect more drives to your computer than the 26 letters of the alphabet would let you.

• You can make files appear to be more readily available or appear to be available in multiple locations. For example, you could keep your videos in a central location but create a subfolder in each user’s Videos folder and assign it to the appropriate drive path. To do this, take the following steps:

1. Right-click the drive in the list box in Disk Management and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths from the context menu. Windows displays the Change Drive Letter and Paths dialog box, as shown here.

2. Click the Add button. Windows displays the Add Drive Letter or Path dialog box, as shown here.

3. Make sure the Mount in the Following Empty NTFS Folder option button is selected. This option button should be selected by default.

4. Click the Browse button and use the resulting Browse for Drive Path dialog box to specify the folder. Alternatively, type the path in the text box.

5. Click the OK button. Windows assigns the path and closes the Add Drive Letter or Path dialog box.

You’ll then be able to access the drive through the folder you assigned. To see if a folder is really a mounted volume, display the Properties dialog box for the folder and see if the Type readout on the General page says Mounted Volume.

To check which drives are mounted as which folders, choose View Drive Paths from Disk Management. Windows displays the Drive Paths dialog box shown next, which lists the drive paths and their volume mapping and which includes a Remove button for removing drive mappings.

Extending and Shrinking Volumes

Windows Vista reduces the problems associated with managing volumes by allowing you to extend volumes with available free space or shrink volumes to create free space.

Extending a Volume

If there is unallocated space outside the boundaries of a volume, you can extend the volume into that space. To extend a volume, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the volume, and then choose Extend Volume from the context menu. Windows launches the Extend Volume Wizard, which displays its Welcome screen.

2. Click the Next button. The wizard displays its Select Disks screen .

3. In the Available list box, select the space to use to extend the volume, and then click the Add button. The wizard adds the space to the Selected list box. If there’s only one space you can use, the wizard adds it to the Selected list box automatically.

4. In the Select the Amount of Space in MB box, enter the amount of space to use. The wizard suggests using all the available space, which is a good choice unless you have another use for part of the space.

5. Click the Next button. The wizard displays its Completing the Extend Volume Wizard screen, which summarizes the changes you’ve decided to make.

6. Click the Finish button. The wizard extends the volume and closes itself.

Shrinking a Volume

To shrink a volume, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the volume, and then choose Shrink Volume from the context menu. Windows displays the Shrink dialog box, as shown here.

2. In the Enter the Amount of Space to Shrink in MB box, enter the amount of space by which you want to shrink the volume. The Size of Available Shrink in MB box shows you the maximum amount by which you can shrink the volume, and Windows sets this value in the Enter the Amount of Space to Shrink in MB box automatically.

3. Click the Shrink button. Windows shrinks the volume by the specified amount and creates unallocated space after it.

Deleting a Volume

To delete a volume and dispose of all its data, follow these steps:

1. If the volume you want to delete is active, you must make another volume active before you can delete your victim. To make another volume active:

• Right-click that volume, and then choose Mark Partition as Active from the context menu. Windows displays a Disk Management dialog box warning you that changing the active partition may make the disk not startable if the partition doesn’t have valid system files, as shown here.

• If you’re sure the volume you’re making active does contain system files, click the Yes button. Windows makes the volume active.

2.Right-click the volume you want to delete, and then choose Delete Volume from the context menu. Disk Management displays the Delete Volume dialog box - for example, for a Simple layout, Disk Management displays the Delete Simple Volume dialog box shown here.

3. Click the Yes button. If the volume isn’t being used, Disk Management simply deletes it. If an application is using the volume, Disk Management displays a dialog box such as the one shown here:

4. Close any applications that may be using the volume, and then click the Yes button. Disk Management deletes the volume and marks it as unallocated space.

Changing the Drive Letter

Disk Management also lets you change the drive letter for a volume other than your system volume or boot volume. This capability comes in handy if you get your drive letters in a tangle. Be aware, though, that changing the drive letter will confuse any program that has learned the path to files on this drive. To change the drive letter, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the drive whose letter you want to change and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths from the context menu. Disk Management displays the Change Drive Letter and Paths dialog box, as shown here.

2.To change the drive letter, select it, and then click the Change button. Disk Management displays the Change Drive Letter or Path dialog box, shown here.

3. Make sure the Assign the Following Drive Letter option button is selected, and then select the letter in the drop-down list.

4. Click the OK button. Disk Management displays the following dialog box, warning you that changing the drive letter might prevent programs from running.

5. Click the Yes button. If files on the drive are open, Disk Management displays the Disk Management dialog box shown next, telling you that you can continue to use the old drive letter until you reboot and asking if you want to continue.

6. Click the Yes button. Disk Management makes the change.

7. Change other drive letters if necessary, and then restart your computer so that you can start using the new drive letter assignments.

Exiting Disk Management

When you’ve finished working in Disk Management, choose File Exit to close Disk Management.

The Bottom Line Format a disk so that Windows can use it You must format a disk before Windows can use it. Choose Start Computer, right-click the disk, and then choose the Format command from the context menu.

Change your computer’s name, description, and workgroup Your computer’s name is the name by which other computers on the network know it. The description is to help humans identify the computer, and the workgroup is the name for the group of computers to which your computer is connected. To change the name, description, or workgroup, press Windows Key+Break, and then click the Change Settings link in the Computer Name, Domain, and Workgroup area of the System window.

Convert a disk to NTFS for efficiency and stability NTFS is not only more efficient and more stable than FAT32, but it also provides security features. You can convert a disk from FAT or FAT32 to NTFS without losing data by choosing Start All Programs Accessories Command Prompt and then issuing a convert command: convert drive: /FS:NTFS, where drive: is the letter of the drive to convert.

Free up space on your disk using compression To pack more data on a disk, you can compress files, folders, or whole disks.

• To compress a file or folder, right-click it, choose Properties, and then click the Advanced button. In the Advanced Attributes dialog box, select the Compress Contents to Save Disk Space check box, and then click the OK button in each dialog box.

• To compress a whole drive, choose Start Computer, right-click the drive, and then choose Properties. Select the Compress Drive to Save Disk Space check box on the General page, click the Apply button, choose Apply Changes to drive:\, Subfolders and Files option button, and then click the OK button.

Tell Windows which folders to index To configure indexing, choose Start Control Panel, click the System and Maintenance link, and then click the Indexing Options link. Click the Modify button in the Indexing Options dialog box to display the Indexed Locations dialog box, which lets you choose which folders to index.

Keep your hard disks defragmented and cleaned up To defragment your hard disks, choose Start All Programs Accessories System Tools Disk Defragmenter, and then click the Defragment Now button. To clean up your disks, choose Start All Programs Accessories System Tools Disk Cleanup, click the My Files Only button in the Disk Cleanup Options dialog box, choose the drive, select the items to clean up, and then click the OK button.

Change your disk volumes or mount them in folders for easy access To work with disk volumes, choose Start Control Panel, click the System and Maintenance link, and then click the Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions link. You can then use the Disk Management window to create new disk volumes, shrink or expand existing volumes, or mount a volume in a folder so that you can access it more easily through the file system.