1. Working with Disks
Lesson 4

2. Skills Matrix Technology Skill Objective Domain Objective #
Configuring Data Protection
Configure data protection
6.4
Using the Back Up Files Wizard
Use Windows backup and restore
Using Complete PC
Use Complete PC to create an image
Restoring Previous Versions
Restore damaged or deleted files by using previous versions
6.4
Skills Matrix

3. Partition Styles Chapter 4 MBR – Master Boot Record
GPT – GUID (globally unique identifier) Partition Table
Before a new drive can be used it must be first partitioned and second formatted.
Partitioning divides the drive into major sections (or the entire drive can be used as one partition)
-Formatting commands build a data structure on the drive to store files and work inside of a partition. We will talk about formatting a little later. Right now you need to understand that there are 2 types of partition styles.
Vista is the first Microsoft OS to support 2 partitioning styles for x86 drives. XP used MBR for all x86 installations and used GPT for x64 installations.
Vista supports both styles for x86 installations. Let’s compare both types.
Chapter 4

4. Master Boot Record -- MBR
Default partition style for x86 systems
Uses a Partition Table to store drive geometry
Uses Hidden sectors to store system information
Supports volumes up to 2 terabytes
Supports up to 4 primary partitions or 3 primary partitions and one extended partition per disk
Chapter 4

5. GUID Partition Table -- GPT
Default partition style for x64 systems
Uses an partitions rather than hidden sectors to store system information
Uses EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) to boot the drive
Uses primary and backup partition tables to improve integrity
Supports up to 128 partitions
Supports Volumes up to 18 exabytes
Chapter 4

6. Disk Storage Chapter 4 Basic Storage – compatible with other OS
Consists of primary and extended partitions
Supports up to four partitions (per single hard drive)
Laptop computers use only basic storage
Windows Vista can be installed only onto basic storage type partitions
Dynamic Storage – supported by Windows 2000/XP/Vista
Configured as dynamic disks
Dynamic disks can combine two or more physical disks into one dynamic disk
Dynamic disks divided into volumes
Chapter 4

7. Basic Disks
Uses Primary Partitions, Extended Partitions and Logical drives to organize data
Adequate for most personal computers.

8. Primary and Extended Partitions
Functions as a physically separate disk
Can host an OS
Can be marked as active (and used to boot from)
Up to 4 are supported or Extended
Each is formatted and assigned a drive letter
EXTENDED
Cannot host an OS
Cannot be active partition
Basic disk can only host 1 Extended but unlimited logical partitions
Do not format extended partition, but the logical drives
Chapter 4

9. Dynamic Storage - Volumes
Volume – a portion of a dynamic disk that functions as a separate disk
Each volume is assigned a drive letter
Only Windows 2000, XP and Vista can access data on volumes
There are three types of volumes
Simple volume
Spanned volume
Striped volumes
Chapter 4

10. Dynamic Disk -- Simple volume
Contains space from a single dynamic drive
Chapter 4

11. Dynamic Disk -- Spanned volume
Consists of disk space on 2-32 dynamic drives
Chapter 4

12. Dynamic Disk -- Striped volume
stores data in equal stripes on dynamic drives
Chapter 4

13. File Systems Summary Chapter 4
FAT (FAT16) – up to 4GB (not supported by Vista)
For backward compatibility with other operating systems
Allows easy upgrade from another OS
Enables multi boot systems to share data drives
FAT32 – up to 32GB
used to support larger drives, offers multi boot shared drives with Windows 98/95
NTFS (preferred file system) – up to 4TB
Offers larger volume support
Offers compression and encryption
Security
Chapter 4

14. Comparison of File Systems
NTFS
Recoverable file system
Local file security
Small cluster size
Supports mirroring
Fast searches
Built-in compression and encryption
FAT32
Most compatible system
Less overhead and is best for drives < 1GB
Use DOS to access active partition from a floppy
Before you can format you must decide which file system do you want. There is FAT16 – not discussed used with W95 and NT -- history
FAT32 NTFS
Only certain operating systems can read from or write to NTFS drives.
DOS, Windows 95, 98 and ME cannot.
Therefore, if you are going to be dual booting the computer (running more than one operating system), you must understand that these other OS’s will not be able to read from the partitions or possibly not even boot up.
Chapter 4

15. How FAT works? File Allocation Table Cluster Status Comment1
reserved 2 3
start cluster IPC144.txt
999
End cluster IPC144.txt
Directory Table
Filename
Starting Cluster
IPC144.txt 2
Win133.doc 5 4
Empty 5 7
First cluster Win133.doc 6
999
Start/ End Sched.pdf 9
Pointer to cluster 9
End cluster Win133.doc
Sched.pdf 6
The directory table is a file maintained by the OS that contains a list of all files on the disk and the number of the cluster that contains the start of the file. The Directory and FAT table work together to keep track of the files on a disk.
The file Win133.doc for example begins at cluster 5.
Each cluster is listed in the FAT, along with the number that indicates the status of the cluster. If the status is “1”, the cluster is reserved for the OS. If the status is “0” the cluster is empty and new data can be stored there. If the status is “999” the cluster contains the end of a file. Other status numbers indicate the sector that holds more data for a file. For example, Win133.doc begins at cluster 5, but cluster 5 sets a pointer to cluster 7, which points to cluster 8 and lastly cluster 9 to retrieve all parts of the file. Notice that Win133.doc is NOT “contiguous” meaning that all related parts of the file are not side by side.
You can see the beginnings of “fragmentation”. When a file is to be saved, FAT stores the file in the first available space, even if that space is too small for the file, as you see with Win133.doc. Overtime this fragmentation can greatly lessen read performance.
When you retrieve a file, the OS looks through the Directory table to find the file name and the starting cluster of the file. The OS passes this information to the device driver which in turn communicates with the hard drive controller to more the read-write heads to the beginning cluster. It takes longer to access a file stored in noncontiguous clusters than one stored in contiguous clusters because the read-write heads must more farther to find the next section of the file.
When you delete a file, the OS changes the status of the appropriate clusters in the FAT. For example, if you deleted the Win133.doc file the status of the clusters 5,7,8,9 would be set to “0”. The actual information remains on the drive. This rather interesting Windows feature gives rise to the Recycle Bin which stores a copy of all files with a “0” status and if you inadvertently delete a file, the Recycle Bin can “restore” it by resetting the file’s status. The actual file data never moved.

16. Extended attribute maps VCNs to LCNs
How NTFS works?
Resident to MFT
Header Information
Standard Information
Filename
Data Area (2KB)
Security Descriptor
Non Resident to MFT
Header Information
Standard Information
Filename
Extended attribute maps VCNs to LCNs
Security Descriptor
FAT uses 2 components to manage files a Directory table and an Allocation table of data files. In contrast, the NTFS file system uses a relational database called the Master File Table (MFT) as its core component. The MFT consists of rows of file records and columns of file attributes. It contains at least one entry for every file on an NTFS volume, including the MFT itself.
By default the 12.5% of the partition size is reserved for the MFT. This space, known as the MFT zone, is not used to store data unless the remainder of the volume becomes full.
Each row of the MFT contains information about each file. Including header information, such as version number, standard information such as date and time, filename and security information. Entries in the MFT are ordered alphabetically by filename and use a B-tree structure to search for files.
The B-tree structure allows NTFS to group, or index, similar file names and then search only the group that contains the file, minimizing the number of disk accesses needed to find a particular file, especially for large folders. Because of the B-tree structure, NTFS outperforms FAT for large folders because FAT must scan all file names in a large folder before listing all of the files.
Typically, NTFS creates a file record for each file and a folder record for each folder If the file and attributes are less than 2KB in size, it will be written to a record in the MFT table itself. Not all files can fit, however, in this 2KB space. For larger files, the data area is used to store “Extended Attributes” of the file. In this case, the MFT maintains a mapping of the virtual 64 bit cluster numbers (VCN) to the logical cluster numbers of the drive (LCN).
For very large files the Extended Attribute pointing to the data may itself exceed 2 KB. In this case, the Extended Attribute will point to another modified non-resident MFT record which in turn will point to the VCNs of the data on the drive.
DATA
DATA
DATA

17. Disk Management Snap-In
Used to manage disks and partitions can create, resize or delete partitions, format drives, create volumes, etc.
Chapter 4

18. Managing Permissions Chapter 4 NTFS permissions
Control access to files and folders on NTFS volumes
Share permissions
Control access to folders over a network. To access a file over a network, the user must have the appropriate share AND NTFS permissions
Chapter 4

19. Windows Permission Architecture
Permissions are organized into ACLs (access control lists)
Each list consists of a collection of individual permissions called Access Control Entries (ACE)
Permissions are stored with the file or folder being protected and is not part of the user account
Chapter 4

20. Using Backup and Restore Centre
Creates backup of Files and folders to a network share, DVD, CD or other hard disk
Creates a backup of the entire drive using an image based utility called Complete PC
Restore Files and folders that were previously backed up or an entire computer drive
Chapter 4

21. You Learned
Windows Vista uses two hard disk partition styles: MBR and GPT.
Windows Vista supports two disk types: basic disks and dynamic disks.
Basic disks can have up to four partitions: three primary partitions and a fourth usually being an extended partition, on which you can create multiple logical drives.
Chapter 4

22. You Learned (cont.) Chapter 4
Windows Vista supports three types of dynamic volumes: simple, spanned, and striped.
You use the Disk Management snap-in for MMC to manage disks.
Windows Vista has several sets of permissions, which operate independently of each other, including NTFS permissions, share permissions
Permissions are organized into ACLs
Backup and Restore can backup files, folders and complete PCs
Chapter 4