Managing Disks and Drives Chapter 13 powered by dj

Chapter Objectives  Explain disk related terminologies  Format disks  Create disk volumes  Change drive letter and volume label  Map a volume to an NTFS folder  Manage disks and volumes  Use DiskPart command powered by dj

Recall  Shadow copies are copies of the original files created by Windows automatically, which can be restored if the original files get deleted or damaged  Taking backup of data is essential in case the original data get lost or corrupted due to hardware failure or virus attack  System Restore is a method that uses the computer’s previous configuration for recovering from system failure powered by dj

Disk Related Terminology  Volume  Mounted drive  Format  File System  Basic disk and dynamic disk  Simple volume  Spanned volume  Striped volume  Mirrored and RAID-5 volumes  Active partition, boot partition and system partition powered by dj

 Question for group discussion – What is the difference between Basic Disk and Dynamic Disk? (2 min) powered by dj

File System  A file system determines the method used by the computer for storing and organizing data in a particular volume  FAT file system does not support a partition that exceeds 4 GB  FAT32 file system does not support a partition that exceeds 32 GB  NTFS supports all the basic features of FAT32 and FAT file system including supports for larger partition Types of File system FAT (FAT16) FAT32NTFS powered by dj

 Question for group discussion – What is the file system? (2 min) powered by dj

Advantages of NTFS  NTFS permissions for securing files  File encryption support  Ability to recover from file system errors  Support for large volumes  Expandability of existing volumes  Optimized storage of small files powered by dj

 Question for group discussion – What are the features of NTFS? (2 min) powered by dj

Formatting Disks  A disk added to the computer for the first time has to be formatted before it can be used  A volume containing data can also be formatted to erase all its contents  The system volume and the volumes that are currently in use cannot be formatted  Disks, volumes and partitions are formatted using the Disk Management utility powered by dj

 Practical Activity: Demonstrate a procedure to format a disk drive.(15 min) powered by dj

Choosing the Right UDF version for Optical Media  Windows Vista provides different versions of Universal Disk Format (UDF) for formatting optical media such as CDs and DVDs  Different versions of UDF are UDF 1.50, UDF 2.00, UDF 2.01 and UDF 2.50  UDF is the successor to CDFS (CD-ROM file system)  CDFS is a file system for Linux operating system that provides access to data and audio tracks on CDs powered by dj

Converting FAT or FAT32 Disk to NTFS  A FAT or FAT32 disk can be converted to a NTFS disk using the Convert utility at the command prompt  To convert a FAT or FAT32 disk to NTFS disk, type: convert x: /fs:ntfs (where x is the drive letter of the volume to be converted)  Converting a FAT or FAT32 disk to NTFS disk does not erase the data in the disk powered by dj

 Practical Activity: Demonstrate the method of converting FAT or FAT32 disk to NTFS disk using the Convert utility. (10 min) powered by dj

Creating a partition  Partitions are of two types, namely, primary and extended partition  A primary partition is used for starting an operating system  In Windows, a maximum of only three primary partitions can be created, thus, the fourth partition can be created as an extended partition  An extended partition is like a container that contains one or more logical drives powered by dj

 Practical Activity: Demonstrate a procedure to create a primary partition (simple volume). (8 min) powered by dj

Assigning or Changing Drive Letter and Volume Label  A drive letter helps the user as well as the programs installed in the system to identify one volume from the other and keeps them in an organized way  A volume name is just a label for your volume to imply the overall description of its contents  Drive letters and volume labels are optional  They can also be assigned or changed anytime powered by dj

 Practical Activity: Demonstrate a procedure to assign a drive letter. Demonstrate a procedure to change a drive letter. (10 min)  Practical Activity: Demonstrate a procedure to change a volume label. (8 min) powered by dj

Creating Volumes  The Disk Management utility allows you to create three types of new volumes namely, simple volume, spanned volume and striped volume  For creating any of these volumes, you will require some unallocated space in the hard disk powered by dj

 Practical Activity: Demonstrate the process of converting Basic disk to Dynamic disk. (4 min) powered by dj

Converting a Basic disk to Dynamic disk  Windows Vista supports two types of disk for storage namely, basic and dynamic disk  A basic disk uses partition-oriented disks for storage  A dynamic disk uses volume-oriented disks for storage  When a basic disk is converted to a dynamic disk, the existing partitions on the basic disk are converted into simple volumes on the dynamic disk  Local access to a dynamic disk is limited to Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000 and Windows Vista powered by dj

Creating a New Simple Volume  A simple volume is a volume located entirely inside a physical device  It can consist of a single area or multiple areas on the same disk  It can exist on basic as well as dynamic disk powered by dj

Creating a New Spanned Volume  A spanned volume is a volume created by joining free spaces located on different disks while making it work as just a single volume  It can exist only on a dynamic disk  The risk involved in creating a spanned volume is, if one of the disks used by the spanned volume fails, then data on the other partitions using the spanned volume will also be lost powered by dj

 Practical Activity: Demonstrate a procedure to create a new spanned volume. (10 min) powered by dj

Creating a New Striped Volume  A striped volume is a volume created using stripes of free disk spaces from two or more dynamic disks  The data is allocated alternately and evenly across the disks by dividing them into chunks of 64 KB by the operating system  The primary disadvantage of striped volumes is that they are not fault tolerant  Like spanned volume, if a disk failure occurs in one of the disks used by the striped volume, then data on other partitions used by it will also be lost powered by dj

 Question for group discussion – What are the difference between Spanned and Striped volumes? (2 min) powered by dj

Mapping a Volume to an NTFS Folder  The process of assigning a path to a volume using an empty NTFS folder is called mapping or mounting a volume  Mounted volumes are used for extending the storage capacity of a volume  You can also have several mounted volumes for a volume  Mounted volumes are also called mounted drives, mapped volumes or drive paths powered by dj

 Practical Activity: Demonstrate a procedure to create a mounted volume. (10 min) powered by dj

Managing Disks and Volumes  The disk management utility enables you to:  Extend a volume - Extending a volume increases the size of the volume using unallocated space in the hard disk  Shrink a volume - Shrinking a volume reduces the size of the volume to make some space for another volume that is running out of space  Delete a volume - Deleting a volume erases all the contents of the volume and converts it to an unallocated space powered by dj

 Practical Activity: Demonstrate a procedure to extend a volume. (10 min)  Practical Activity: Demonstrate a procedure to shrink a volume. (6 min)  Practical Activity: Demonstrate a procedure to delete a volume. (6 min) powered by dj

Checking the Status and Properties of Disks and Volumes - I  The Disk Management utility lists the status and properties of all the disks and volumes powered by dj

 Question for group discussion – What does it mean if the status of hard disk is Missing? (2 min) powered by dj

Checking the Status and Properties of Disks and Volumes - II  The various status messages of a disk are:  Online  Online (Errors)  Offline  Foreign  Unreadable  Missing  Not Initialized  No Media powered by dj

Checking the Status and Properties of Disks and Volumes III  The various status messages of a volume are:  Healthy  Healthy (At Risk)  Healthy (Unknown Partition)  Initializing  Failed  Unknown powered by dj

 Question for group discussion – What does it mean if the status of volume is Initializing? (2 min) powered by dj

Using DiskPart Command - I  The DiskPart utility is a command prompt utility for managing the disks, volumes and partitions of the system  It can be used to create partitions, delete partitions, repartition a volume, assign and change drive letters, and extend and shrink volumes  To perform a particular task:  List the objects (disks, volumes and partitions)  Select the appropriate object powered by dj

Using DiskPart Command - II  To list all the disks, type list disk and press ENTER  To list all the volumes, type list volume and press ENTER  To list all the partitions, type list partition and press ENTER  To select an object, type select object id  where, object = disk, volume or partition  id = number or drive letter if it is a volume or partition, only number if it is a disk powered by dj

Summary - I  A volume is referred to a disk drive or a subdivision of a disk, which has been formatted and is available for storing data  A mounted drive is a volume, which is linked to an empty folder on a drive formatted in NTFS file system  Windows Vista supports two types of disk for storage namely, basic disk and dynamic disk  File systems supported by Windows Vista are FAT (File Allocation Table), NTFS (NT File System), CDFS (Compact Disk File System) and UDF (Universal Disk Format) powered by dj

 Practical Activity: Demonstrate the Diskpart command to perform the disk management. (10 min) powered by dj

Summary - II  A simple volume is located inside a physical device  A spanned volume joins the spaces from different disks and making it operate as if it is a single storage medium  A striped volume is created using stripes of free disk spaces from two or more dynamic disks  The Disk Management utility is used for managing the disks, volumes and partitions of your system from the GUI whereas the DiskPart utility allows you to perform the same tasks from command prompt powered by dj