Chapter 4 Working with Disks and Devices

Disk Management snap in tool is a GUI for creating/changing disk partitions and volumes.

A disk volume is like a file cabinet drawer, it can contain partitions, which are like files.

·         Primary partition - appear as a separate disk and can host OS (which is marked as active)

o   Only one active partition per hard disk

o   Up to 4 primary partitions  or 3 primary and 1 extended

o   Once you have reached the maximum partitions, the unallocated spaces changes to free space attached to last partition

·         Extended partition - a partition that is used only for creating a desired number of logical partitions

·         Logical partition - created in extended partitions - can contain up to 24 partitions

Basic disk uses primary, extended, and logical drives to organize data. By converting a basic disk to a dynamic disk, you can create unlimited number of volumes from that partition.

In the snap in tool, you can do the following:

·         Initialize disks

·         Select partition style

·         Convert from basic to dynamic

o   Make sure enough disk space to convert - must have at least 1MB at end of disk in order to convert

o   Do not convert if you are multi-booting

o   Cannot convert removable media to dynamic disk

o   Only way to change back to basic - back up entire disk, delete the dynamic volumes, last volume will change to basic

·         Create partitions and volumes

·         Extend/shrink/delete volumes

·         Format partitions and disks

·         Assign/change drive letters and paths

·         Examine/manage physical disk properties

VHD - virtual hard disk - supports virtual PC, server and Hyper-v products. A VHD file contains entire contents of a hard disk that can move entire virtual machines (VM) from one computer to another.

 Create VHD using Disk Management in Windows 7

Driver updates - 3 main reasons updates are released

·         To fix problems from previous driver releases

·         New features were added

·         Enhance performance of device

Rule to follow:

·         Do not install drivers immediately after release - give manufacturer some time to work out the bugs.

·         Test before deploying

·         See reviews on support Web site - way to see how they work out hardware problems

·         Only download from the manufacturer of the device - avoid third party drivers

·         Digitally signed device drivers have been tested and approved

o   Windows alerts you if it thinks there is a problem with digital signature