Microsoft Press Windows Vista Administrator's Pocket Consultant ebook

by MS

  Figure 9-11: Use the Format dialog box to format a partition or a volume by specifying its file system type and volume label.

  After selecting the appropriate options, click OK to proceed. Because formatting a partition destroys any existing data, Disk Management gives you one last chance to abort the procedure. Click OK to start formatting the partition. Disk Management then changes the status of the drive to reflect the formatting and, unless you are using the Perform A Quick Format option, the percentage of completion. When formatting is complete, the drive status will change to reflect this.

  Assigning, Changing, or Removing Drive Letters and Paths

  Each primary partition, logical drive, or volume on a computer can be assigned one driver letter and one or more drive paths, provided the drive paths are mounted on empty NTFS folders. Once assigned, the drive letter or path remains constant every time you start the computer. Except on partitions or volumes that are designated as system or boot, you can change the drive letter or path assignment at any time. You can also remove a drive letter or path assignment except on partitions or volumes that are designated as system or boot.

  Note

  The drive letter or path assignment for the system or boot volume can be changed only by editing the registry. The procedure for making the change for Windows 2000 is described in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 223188. The procedure for making the change for Windows Vista is the same. However, it is important to be aware that if anything goes wrong during this procedure, you will likely be unable to boot the system and might have to recover the computer from backups.

  To manage a partition's or a volume's drive letters or paths, go to Disk Management and right-click the partition or volume you want to configure. Then choose Change Drive Letter And Paths. This opens a dialog box, shown in Figure 9-12. You can now perform the following actions:

  Add a drive path Click Add, select Mount In The Following Empty NTFS

  Folder, and then type the path to an existing folder, or click Browse to search for or create a folder.

  Remove a drive path Select the drive path to remove, click Remove, and then click Yes.

  Assign a drive letter Click Add, select Assign The Following Drive Letter, and then choose an available letter to assign to the drive.

  Change the drive letter Select the current drive letter and then click Change. Select Assign The Following Drive Letter and then choose a different letter to assign to the drive.

  Remove a drive letter Select the current drive letter, click Remove, and then click Yes.

  Figure 9-12: Use this dialog box to change or remove the drive letter and path assignment.

  Note

  If you try to change the letter of a drive that's in use, Windows Vista displays a warning. You'll need to exit programs that are using the drive and try again, or allow Disk Management to force the change by clicking Yes when prompted.

  Real World

  If the drive letter you want to use isn't available, it means it is in use or reserved for another purpose. Sometimes you can resolve this problem by swapping drive letters. For example, if drive D is being used by the CD-ROM and drive E is a local disk, you might want to swap these letters so that D is used by the local disk and E is used by the CD-ROM. To do this, you must remove the drive letter assigned to the CD-ROM and free drive letter D for use. Next change the driver letter assignment for the local disk so that it is set to D. This frees up E, which you can assign to the CD-ROM. Keep in mind that changing the letter of a drive can have unintended consequences. For example, the path to an application might be stored in the registry with the drive letter. This path would no longer be valid if you change the drive letter. Shortcuts to files or programs on the drive would be affected by the drive letter change as well and would need to be modified or re-created.

  Assigning, Changing, or Deleting a Volume Label

  A volume label is a text descriptor for a partition or a volume. The volume label is displayed when the drive is accessed in various Windows Vista utilities, such as Windows Explorer and Computer, and it is designed to provide additional descriptive information about the contents of a drive.

  Note

  With FAT and FAT32, the volume label can be up to 11 characters in length and can include spaces. With NTFS, the volume label can be up to 32 characters in length. Additionally, although FAT and FAT32 don't allow you to use some special characters, including * / [ ] : ; | =, .+ “ ? < >, NTFS does allow you to use these special characters.

  You can assign, change, or delete a volume label using either Disk Management or Windows Explorer. In Disk Management, you can assign, change, or delete a label by completing the following steps:

  Right-click the partition or volume you want to work with and then choose Properties.

  On the General tab of the Properties dialog box, use the Label field to type a new label or to delete the existing label. Click OK.

  In Windows Explorer, you can assign, change, or delete a label by completing these steps:

  Click Start and then click Computer.

  Right-click the drive icon and then choose Properties.

  On the General tab of the Properties dialog box, use the Label field to type a new label for the volume or to delete the existing label. Click OK.

  Deleting Partitions, Volumes, and Logical Drives

  To change the configuration of an existing drive that's fully allocated, you might need to delete existing partitions, logical drives, or volumes. Because this deletion is irreversible, you should always back up and verify any important files and folders before deleting a partition, a logical drive, or a volume. If a computer has spanned or striped volumes, be careful when deleting volumes. Deleting any volume in a set erases the entire volume set, meaning the entire volume and all its data will be lost.

  Caution

  Deleting a partition, a logical drive, or a volume is a drastic step that cannot be reversed. It removes the associated file system, and all data in the file system is lost.

  Note

  To protect the integrity of the system, you can't delete the system or boot partition. However, Windows Vista will let you delete the active partition or volume if it is not designated as boot or system. Always check to ensure the partition or volume that you are deleting doesn't contain important data or files.

  You can delete a primary partition, a volume, or a logical drive by completing the following steps:

  In Disk Management, right-click the partition, volume, or drive you want to delete. Then choose Explore. Using Windows Explorer, move all the data to another volume or verify an existing backup to ensure the data was properly saved.

  In Disk Management, right-click the partition, volume, or drive again and select Delete Partition, Delete Volume, or Delete Logical Drive as appropriate.

  Confirm that you want to delete the selected item by clicking Yes.

  Deleting an extended partition differs slightly from deleting a primary partition or a logical drive. To delete an extended partition, you must first delete all the logical drives on the partition by following the steps in the preceding list. You will then be able to select the extended partition area itself and delete it.

  Converting a Volume to NTFS

  Windows Vista provides a command-line utility for converting FAT or FAT32 volumes to NTFS. This utility, named Convert (Convert.exe), is located in the %SystemRoot%System32 folder. When you convert a volume using this tool, the file and directory structure is preserved and no data is lost.

  Caution

  Windows Vista doesn't provide a utility for converting NTFS to FAT or FAT32. The only way to go from NTFS to FAT or FAT32 is to delete the partition by following the steps outlined in the previous section and then to re-create the partition as a FAT or FAT32 volume.

  If you want to convert a drive, use the following syntax at an elevated command prompt:

  convert volume /FS:NTFS

  where volume is the drive letter followed by a colon (:), a drive path, or a volum
e name. For example, if you wanted to convert drive D to NTFS, you would use the following command:

  convert D: /FS:NTFS

  The complete syntax for the CONVERT command is:

  CONVERT volume /FS:NTFS [/V] [/X] [/CvtArea:filename] [/NoSecurity]

  These options and switches are used as follows:

  volume Sets the volume to work with and must include the full drive designator (the drive letter followed by a colon).

  /FS: NTFS Converts the designated volume to NTFS. This is the only file system option.

  /V Sets verbose mode, which provides more detail in the output.

  /X Forces the volume to dismount before the conversion (if necessary).

  /CvtArea: filename Specifies a contiguous file in the root directory to be the placeholder for the NTFS system files stored on the MFT. If you omit a file name, Convert uses the default configuration and reserves 12.5 percent of the partition or volume size. This helps to prevent fragmentation of the MFT.

  /NoSecurity Sets the NTFS security settings on all files and folders so that the everyone group can access them. This effectively makes the entire file system accessible to anyone that can access the system locally or remotely.

  Before starting the conversion, the CONVERT command checks whether the drive has enough free space to perform the conversion. Generally, Convert needs a block of free space that's roughly equal to 25 percent of the total space used on the drive. For example, if the drive stores 100 MB of data, Convert needs about 25 MB of free space. If there isn't enough free space, Convert aborts and tells you that you need to free up some space. On the other hand, if there is enough free space, Convert initiates the conversion. Be patient. The conversion process takes several minutes (longer for large drives). Don't access files or applications on the drive while the conversion is in progress.

  Note

  Before using the Convert utility, double-check whether the partition is being used as the active boot partition or a system partition containing the operating system. With Intel x86 systems, you can convert the active boot partition to NTFS. Doing so requires that the system gain exclusive access to this partition, which can be obtained only during startup. Thus, if you try to convert the active boot partition to NTFS, Windows Vista displays a prompt asking if you want to schedule the drive to be converted the next time the system starts. If you click Yes, you can restart the system to begin the conversion process. Often it will take several restarts of a system to completely convert the active boot partition. Don't panic. Let the system proceed with the conversion.

  Real World

  You can improve performance on the volume using the /CvtArea option so that space for the MFT is reserved. This option helps to prevent fragmentation of the MFT. How? Over time, the MFT might grow larger than the space allocated to it. The operating system must then expand the MFT into other areas of the disk. Although the Windows Vista Disk Defragmenter utility can defragment the MFT, it cannot move the first section of the MFT, and it is very unlikely there will be space after the MFT because this will be filled by file data.

  To help prevent fragmentation in some cases, you might want to reserve more space than the default (12.5 percent of the partition or volume size). For example, you might want to increase the MFT size if the volume will have many small or average-sized files rather than a few large files. To specify the amount of space to reserve, you can use FSUtil to create a placeholder file equal in size to that of the MFT you want to create. You can then convert the volume to NTFS and specify the name of the placeholder file to use with the /CvtArea option.

  In this example, you use FSUtil to create a 1.5 GB (1,500,000,000 bytes) placeholder file named Temp.Txt:

  fsutil file createnew c:temp.txt 1500000000

  To use this placeholder file for the MFT when converting drive C to NTFS, you would then type the following command:

  convert c: /fs:ntfs /cvtarea:temp.txt

  Notice that the placeholder file is created on the partition or volume that is being converted. During the conversion process, the file will be overwritten with NTFS metadata and any unused space in the file will be reserved for future use by the MFT.

  Recovering a Failed Simple, Spanned, or Striped Disk

  Simple disks are fairly easy to troubleshoot and recover because there is only one disk involved. Spanned or striped disks, on the other hand, might have multiple disks, and the failure of any one disk makes the entire volume unusable. The drive status might show it is Missing, Failed, Online (Errors), Offline, or Unreadable.

  You might see the Missing (and sometimes Offline) status if drives have been disconnected or turned off. If the drives are part of an external storage device, check the storage device to ensure it is connected properly and has power. Reconnecting the storage device or turning on the power should make the drives accessible. You then must start Disk Management and rescan the missing drive. Right-click the missing drive and choose Rescan Disks. When Disk Management finishes, right-click the drive and then choose Reactivate.

  You might see the Failed, Online (Errors), and Unreadable statuses if a drive has I/O problems. As before, try rescanning the drive and then try to reactivate the drive. If the drive doesn't come back to the Healthy state, you might need to replace it.

  Tip

  Sometimes you might need to reboot the computer to get a disk back online. If this still doesn't resolve the problem, check for problems with the drive, its controller, and the cables. Also make sure that the drive has power and is connected properly.

  Moving a Dynamic Disk to a New System

  An important advantage of dynamic disks over basic disks is that you can easily move them from one computer to another. For example, if after setting up a computer, you decide that you don't really need an additional hard disk, you can move it to another computer where it can be better used. Before moving disks, you should complete the following steps:

  Access Disk Management on the computer where the dynamic disks are currently installed and check their status. The status should be Healthy. If it isn't, you should fix any problems before moving the disks.

  Caution

  Drives with Bit Locker Drive encryption cannot be moved using this technique. Windows Vista Enterprise and Ultimate editions include Bit Locker Driver Encryption that wraps drives in a protected seal so that any offline tampering is detected and results in the disk being unavailable until an administrator unlocks it.

  Check the hard disk subsystems on the original computer and the computer to which you want to transfer the disk. Both computers should have identical hard disk subsystems. If they don't, the Plug and Play ID on the system disk from the original computer won't match what the destination computer is expecting. As a result, the destination computer won't be able to load the right drivers, and boot might fail.

  Check whether any dynamic disks that you want to move are part of a spanned, extended, or striped set. If they are, you should make a note of which disks are part of which set and plan on moving all disks in a set together. If you are moving only part of a disk set, you should be aware of the consequences. For spanned, extended, or striped volumes, moving only part of the set will make the related volumes unusable on the current computer and on the computer to which you are planning to move the disks.

  When you are ready to move the disks, complete the following tasks:

  On the original computer, start Computer Management. Then, in the left pane, select Device Manager. In the Device list, expand Disk Drives. This shows a list of all the physical disk drives on the computer. Right-click each disk that you want to move and then select Uninstall. If you are unsure which disks to uninstall, right-click each disk and select Properties. In the Properties dialog box, select the Volumes tab and then choose Populate. This shows you the volumes on the selected disk.

  Next, select the Disk Management node in Computer Management on the original computer. Right-click each disk that you want to move and then select Remove Disk.

  Once you
perform these procedures, you can move the dynamic disks. If the disks are hot swappable and this feature is supported on both computers, remove the disks from the original computer and then install them on the destination computer. Otherwise, turn off both computers, remove the drives from the original computer, and then install them on the destination computer. When you're finished, restart the computers.

  On the destination computer, access Disk Management and then select Rescan Disks from the Action menu. When Disk Management finishes scanning the disks, right-click any disk marked Foreign and click Import. You should now be able to access the disks and their volumes on the destination computer.

  Note

  The volumes on the dynamic disks should retain the drive letters that they had on the original computer. If a drive letter is already used on the destination computer, a volume receives the next available drive letter. If a dynamic volume previously did not have a drive letter, it does not receive a drive letter when moved to another computer. Additionally, if automounting is disabled, the volumes aren't automatically mounted and you must manually mount volumes and assign drive letters.

  Troubleshooting Common Disk Problems

  Using Disk Management, you can determine the status of disks and the volumes they contain. Disk status is displayed in Graphical view below the physical disk number and in the Disk List view in the Status field. Volume status is displayed as part of the volume information in Graphical view and in the Status column in Volume List view.