Partitioning Disks and Preparing Them for Use in Vista

Disk Management is the primary tool that you'll use to partition disks and prepare them for use. Using Disk Management, you can partition, assign drive designators to, and format both partitions and volumes. Disk Management's command-line counterparts include DiskPart for partitioning and drive designator assignment and Format for formatting.

Creating Partitions, Logical Drives, and Simple Volumes

Windows Vista simplifies the Disk Management user interface by using one set of dialog boxes and wizards for both partitions and volumes. The first three volumes on a basic drive are created automatically as primary partitions. If you try to create a fourth volume on a basic drive, the remaining free space on the drive is converted automatically to an extended partition with a logical drive of the size you designate. You designate the size by using the new volume feature it created in the extended partition. Any subsequent volumes are created in the extended partitions and logical drives automatically.

In Disk Management, you create partitions, logical drives, and simple volumes by completing the following steps:

1. In Disk Management's Graphical view, right-click an unallocated or free area and then choose New Simple Volume. This starts the New Simple Volume Wizard. Read the Welcome page and then click Next.

2. The Specify Volume Size page, shown in Figure 1, specifies the minimum and maximum size for the volume in MB and lets you size the volume within these limits. Size the partition in MB using the Simple Volume Size field and then click Next.

   
   Figure 1: Set the size of the volume.

3. On the Assign Drive Letter Or Path page, shown in Figure 2, specify whether you want to assign a drive letter or path and then click Next. The available options are used as follows:

   • q Assign The Following Drive Letter Choose this option to assign a drive letter. Then select an available drive letter in the selection list provided. By default, Windows Vista selects the lowest available drive letter and excludes reserved drive letters as well as those assigned to local disks or network drives.

   • q Mount In The Following Empty NTFS Folder Choose this option to mount the partition in an empty NTFS folder. You must then type the path to an existing folder or click Browse to search for or create a folder to use.

   • q Do Not Assign A Drive Letter Or Drive Path Choose this option if you want to create the partition without assigning a drive letter or path. If you later want the partition to be available for storage, you can assign a drive letter or path at that time.

   
   Figure 2: Assign the drive designator or choose to wait until later.

   Note

   Volumes don't have to be assigned a drive letter or a path. A volume with no designators is considered to be unmounted and is for the most part unusable. An unmounted volume can be mounted by assigning a drive letter or a path at a later date.

4. Use the Format Partition page, shown in Figure 3, to determine whether and how the volume should be formatted. If you want to format the volume, choose Format This Volume With The Following Settings and then configure the following options:

   • q File System Sets the file system type as FAT, FAT32, or NTFS. NTFS is selected by default in most cases. If you create a file system as FAT or FAT32, you can later convert it to NTFS by using the Convert utility. You can't, however, convert NTFS partitions to FAT or FAT32.

   • q Allocation Unit Size Sets the cluster size for the file system. This is the basic unit in which disk space is allocated. The default allocation unit size is based on the size of the volume and, by default, is set dynamically prior to formatting. To override this feature, you can set the allocation unit size to a specific value. If you use many small files, you might want to use a smaller cluster size, such as 512 or 1024 bytes. With these settings, small files use less disk space.

   • q Volume Label Sets a text label for the partition. This label is the partition's volume name and by default is set to New Volume. You can change the volume label at any time by right-clicking the volume in Windows Explorer, choosing Properties, and typing a new value in the Label field provided on the General tab.

   • q Perform A Quick Format Tells Windows Vista to format without checking the partition for errors. With large partitions, this option can save you a few minutes. However, it's usually better to check for errors, which enables Disk Management to mark bad sectors on the disk and lock them out.

   • q Enable File And Folder Compression Turns on compression for the disk.

     Built-in compression is available only for NTFS. Under NTFS, compression is transparent to users and compressed files can be accessed just like regular files. If you select this option, files and directories on this drive are compressed automatically. For more information on compressing drives, files, and directories.

     
     Figure 3: Set the formatting options for the partition.

5. Click Next, confirm your options, and then click Finish.

Creating Spanned and Striped Volumes on Dynamic Disks

With spanning and striping, you create a single dynamic volume that extends across multiple disks. When working with spanning and striping, keep the following in mind:

• A spanned volume uses free space on multiple dynamic disks. If you have unal-located space on two or more dynamic disks, you can combine this space to create a spanned volume. A spanned volume has no fault tolerance and has average read/write performance. Files are written to the entire spanned volume randomly. If any of the disks fail, the entire volume will fail as well, and all data will be lost.

• A striped volume uses free space on multiple disks and stripes the data as it is written. Striping gives you faster read/write access to data because data is read from and written to multiple disks. For example, with a three-disk striped volume, data from a file will be written to Disk 1, then to Disk 2, and then to Disk 3 in 64-KB blocks. Like a spanned volume, a striped volume has no fault tolerance, so if any of the disks fail, the entire volume will fail as well, and all data will be lost.

Note

If you have only one dynamic disk available, you will not be able to create a spanned or striped volume. Also note that simple and spanned volumes can be extended to increase their volume size. Striped volumes, however, cannot be extended. So when you create a striped volume, you should be very certain that the volume size is what you want to use. Otherwise, you might have to delete and then re-create the striped volume.

In Disk Management, you create spanned or striped volumes on dynamic disks by completing the following steps:

1. In Disk Management's Graphical view, right-click an unallocated area and then choose New Spanned Volume or New Striped Volume as appropriate. Read the Welcome page and then click Next.

2. On the Select Disks page, shown in Figure 4, select the dynamic disks that are to be a part of the volume and size the volume segments on those disks. Then click Next.

   
   Figure 4: Specify the amount of space to use for each volume.

   Available dynamic disks are shown in the Available list box. Select a disk in this list box and then click Add to add the disk to the Selected list box. If you make a mistake, you can remove disks from the Selected list box by selecting the disk and then clicking Remove.

   Specify the space that you want to use on each disk by selecting each disk in the Selected list box and then using the Select The Amount Of Space In MB list box to specify the amount of space to use on the selected disk. Keep in mind that the Maximum field shows you the largest area of free space available on the selected disk and the Total Volume Size field shows you the total disk space currently allocated to the volume.

   Tip

   There's a quick way to use the same amount of space on all selected disks. To do this, highlight each disk by pressing Shift and then clicking the first disk and the last disk in the Selected list box. Now when you set the amount of space to use, you'll set the amount for all selected disks.

Shrinking or Extending Volumes

Windows Vista doesn't user Ntldr and Boot.ini to load the operating system. Instead, Windows Vista has a pre-boot environment in which Windows Boot Manager is used to control startup and load the boot application you've selected. The Windows Boot Manager also finally frees the Windows operating system from its reliance on MS-DOS, enabling you to use drives in new ways. Windows Vista enables you to extend and shrink both basic and dynamic disks. You can use either Disk Management or DiskPart to extend and shrink volumes. You cannot shrink or extend striped volumes.

In extending a volume, you convert areas of unallocated space and add them to the existing volume. For spanned volumes on dynamic disks, the space can come from any available dynamic disk, not only those on which the volume was originally created, enabling you to combine areas of free space on multiple dynamic disks and use those areas to increase the size of an existing volume.

Caution

Before you try to extend a volume, you should know about several limitations. First, simple and spanned volumes can be extended only if they are formatted and the file system is NTFS. You can't extend striped volumes. You can't extend volumes that aren't formatted or that are formatted with FAT or FAT32. Additionally, you can't extend a system or boot volume, regardless of its configuration.

You can shrink a simple volume or a spanned volume by completing the following steps:

1. In Disk Management, right-click the volume that you want to shrink and then select Shrink Volume. This option is available only if the volume meets the previously discussed criteria.

2. In the field provided in the Shrink dialog box, shown in Figure 5, enter the amount of space to shrink. The Shrink dialog box provides the following information:

   • q Total Size Before Shrink In MB Lists the total capacity of the volume in MB. This is the formatted size of the volume.

   • q Size Of Available Shrink Space In MB Lists the maximum amount by which the volume can be shrunk. This doesn't represent the total amount of free space on the volume; rather, it represents the amount of space that can be removed, not inclusive of any data reserved for the master file table, volume snapshots, page files, and temporary files.

   • q Amount of Space To Shrink In MB Lists the total amount of space that will be removed from the volume. The initial value defaults to the maximum amount of space that can be removed from the volume. For optimal drive performance, you'll want to ensure the drive has at least 10 percent of free space after the shrink operation.

   • q Total Size After Shrink In MB Lists what the total capacity of the volume in MB will be after the shrink. This is the new formatted size of the volume.

     
     Figure 5: Specify the amount of space to shrink from the volume.

3. Click Shrink to shrink the volume.

You can extend a simple volume or a spanned volume by completing the following steps:

1. In Disk Management, right-click the volume that you want to extend and then select Extend Volume. This option is available only if the volume meets the previously discussed criteria and free space is available on one or more of the system's dynamic disks.

2. In the Extend Volume Wizard, read the introductory message and then click Next.

3. On the Select Disks page, shown previously in Figure 4, select the disk or disks from which you want to allocate free space. Any disks currently being used by the volume will automatically be selected. By default, all remaining free space on those disks will be selected for use.

4. With dynamic disks, you can specify the additional space that you want to use on other disks by performing the following tasks:

   • q Click the disk and then click Add > to add the disk to the Selected list box.

   • q Select each disk in the Selected list box and then use the Select The

   Amount Of Space In MB list box to specify the amount of unallocated space to use on the selected disk.

5. Click Next, confirm your options, and then click Finish.

Formatting Partitions and Volumes

When you format a partition or a volume, you create a file system that can be used to store data and that permanently deletes any existing data in the associated section of the physical disk. This is high-level formatting that creates the file system structure rather than low-level formatting that initializes a drive for use. To format a partition or a volume, right-click it in Disk Management and then choose Format. This opens the Format dialog box, shown in Figure 6. If you compare Figure 3 and Figure 6, you'll see that the available fields are essentially the same.

Figure 6: 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 7. 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 7: 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:

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

2. 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:

1. Click Start and then click Computer.

2. Right-click the drive icon and then choose Properties.

3. 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:

1. 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.

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

3. 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 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 volume 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.