What name is given to a logical storage unit that is subsequently used by an operating system?

Theorem 11.30

For the extended partition yj, j = 1, …, 2m + k, of [a, b] we assume that b < y2m+k. We assume that the ECT-system Um is defined on the interval [y1, y2m+k]. If the T B-spline Qi is given by formula (11.24) then the set of functions {Qi(t)}i=1m+k is a basis of the set of all Chebyshev splines Sm on [a, b].

Let us note that the proof uses essentially the result on the zeros of the compactly supported splines, Theorem 11.26, p. 200.

Disk management

Microsoft Windows XP offers two types of disk storage: basic and dynamic.

Troubleshooting a Hard Drive

There’s very little that can be done when a hard drive fails, but the key is finding out how failed is failed. The simplest way of determining whether a hard drive can be salvaged is to feel it as it boots up. If there’s vibration, the internal disk is rotating, meaning that there’s a chance to retrieve the data without the need of a professional agency.

The following troubleshooting recommendations (see Figure 9.15) are for a regular NTFS formatted hard drive and not for a hard drive that is part of a RAID array. Do not use FAT32 formatting for DVS, since the system is not as robust as NTFS and the files are limited to 2 GB in size. The RAID hard drive would need to be replaced (with the exact same hard drive), and the RAID software will recover the data (except for RAID 0). This advice also does not pertain to the boot disk but only additional hard drives used for archiving video.

There are two types of disks in a Windows environment. A basic disk is a physical hard drive that contains primary partitions, extended partitions, or logical drives. A dynamic disk includes the ability (but not a necessity) to create volumes that span multiple disks and create mirrored and RAID-5 fault-tolerant volumes. Single dynamic disks are also easier to move from one computer to another (more on this later).

BEWARE OF STATIC ELECTRICITY

Whenever you’re troubleshooting electronic components, always ground yourself from electrostatic before handling anything, and always turn off the power before disconnecting or connecting any device.

The first step in determining the severity of the hard drive failure is a system reboot. If the hard drive returns in My Computer, this requires a few select tests, one of which is testing the power supply for compatibility and/or failure. This is especially important because a defective power supply can damage components inside the computer, including the motherboard, hard drives, and memory. A power supply tester, an inexpensive addition to the troubleshooting arsenal, can give you the results instantly.

DATA DISASTER RECOVERY

As long as the hard drive powers up and continues to spin, there are a few possibilities for bringing the hard drive back to life, at least long enough to retrieve the stored data. The following methods have worked for me at various times to bring hard drives to life to retrieve the data they contain:

Install the hard drive in another computer.

Add the hard drive into an external hard drive enclosure.

Carefully hit the side of the hard drive on a clean, flat surface.

Place the hard drive in the freezer for an hour.

If none of these methods work and the stored data is mission critical, data recovery software such as Stellar Data Recovery (www.stellarinfo.com) could work wonders, with a free trial version to determine whether the data is salvageable.

Upon researching the computer’s components, you might find that the power supply is below the recommended rating for the current system. At this point, the best course of action is to upgrade the power supply and then start troubleshooting over once again.

Troubleshooting hard drives in Windows includes the use of the Disk Management tool, which is part of the Computer Management (see Figure 9.16) suite. Again, to access Computer Management, go to Start > Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then press Enter.

The Disk Management console is listed in the left pane under Storage. Click on the Disk Management icon and the computer’s storage devices will appear in the right pane of the console. The hard drive may appear in the Disk Management console with error messages that could help diagnose the problem. If the hard drive does not appear at all in the console, check to see that the hard drive’s data and power connection is securely in place, then reboot.

The messages and/or status errors that appear in the Disk Management console include, but are not limited to, the following:

Foreign Disk

Disk Unreadable

Disk Missing

Disk Not Initialized

Disk Offline

A warning icon appears on disks that display the Foreign status, which signifies a moved dynamic disk, either to another port or from another computer. Dynamic disks are not supported on Windows XP Home Edition or on portable computers.

To access data on the disk, you must add the disk to your computer’s system configuration. To do so, import the foreign disk (right-click the disk icon and then click Import Foreign Disks).

An error icon appears and the hard drive is labeled as unreadable when the disk is not accessible. The hard drive may have experienced hardware failure, corruption, or I/O errors. Sometimes the unreadable disk failed and is not recoverable, but for a dynamic disk, this usually means corruption or I/O errors on part of the disk, not a complete failure of the entire disk. In the Disk Management console, click Action, then choose Rescan Disks or restart the computer to see whether the hard drive’s status changes.

The Missing status indicates a corrupted, turned-off, or disconnected dynamic disk. Instead of appearing in the status column, the Missing status is displayed as the disk name. Make sure the hard drive is connected and powered, then open Disk Management, right-click the missing disk, and then click Reactivate Disk.

When the Not Initialized status occurs, it means that the hard drive does not contain a valid signature in the master boot record (MBR). Disk Management provides a wizard when a hard drive is first installed into the system that, once followed, will add this signature into the boot record. If the wizard was cancelled before the hard drive signature was written into the boot record, the disk status remains Not Initialized. Right-click the hard drive in Disk Management, then click Initialize Disk. The hard drive then changes to Healthy status.

Disk Partitions

Before a hard disk can be formatted to use a particular file system (which we'll discuss later in this chapter), the HDD needs to be partitioned. A partition is a logical division of the hard disk, allowing a single hard disk to function as though it were one or more hard disks on the computer. Even if different partitions aren't used, and the entire disk is set up as a single partition, a partition must be set so that the operating system knows the disk is going to be used in its entirety. Once a partition is set, it can be given a drive letter (such as C:, D:, and so on) and formatted to use a file system. When an area of the hard disk is formatted and issued a drive letter, it is referred to as a volume.

If more than one partition is set, multiple file systems supported by the operating system can be used on a single HDD. For example, on one volume of a Windows computer, you could have C: formatted as a FAT32 file system and D: formatted as a New Technology File System (NTFS). This allows you to use features unique to different file systems on the same computer.

On computers running Linux, DOS, or Windows operating systems, you can use different kinds of partitions. The two types of partitions are:

Primary partition

Extended partition

A primary partition is a partition on which you can install an operating system. A primary partition with an operating system installed on it is used when the computer starts to load the OS. Although a primary partition can exist without an operating system, on older Windows and DOS operating systems, the first partition installed had to be a primary partition. Modern versions of Windows allow up to four primary, or three primary and one extended partition (which we'll discuss next) on a single disk.

An extended partition is a partition that can be divided into additional logical drives. Unlike a primary partition, you don't need to assign it a drive letter and install a file system. Instead, you can use the operating system to create an additional number of logical drives within the extended partition. Each logical drive has its own drive letter and appears as a separate drive. Your only limitations to how many logical drives you create are the amount of free space available on the extended partition and the number of available drive letters you have left on your system.

Preparation

The first stage, preparation, collects information from you regarding your system's environment and your preferences. The default language and keyboard settings are English (US). Selecting the language and keyboard settings will automatically switch the system to the prescribe settings. The Installer application performs a system analysis of your system by conducting a system probe to search for various storage devices (for example, USB, Firewire, floppy disks, hard disk drives), existing Linux partitions and system files, determining whether the system can be updated, and launching the Package Manager.

The Clock and Time Zone setting allows you to set the Region, Time Zone, and system Date and Time information. In addition, you can determine if you would like to use local time or UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). The system can be configured to use Network Time Protocol (NTP) after the installation process is completed. Some distributions allow you to chose which desktop environment you wish to install (if any), with GNOME and KDE being the most popular.

Partitions and Logical Drives

Basic disks can be divided into three different types of partitions:

Primary partition You can create up to four primary partitions on a basic disk. Each hard disk must have at least one primary partition where you can create a logical volume. You can set only one partition as an active partition. Primary partitions are assigned drive letters.

Extended partition A primary partition can also have an extended partition. When you want to have more partitions on a basic disk, you can create an extended partition to meet your extra disk partition requirements. You can create logical drives in the extended partition to organize your data files.

Logical drives You use logical drives to organize your data files when there aren't enough primary partitions to meet your storage requirements. Unlike primary and extended partitions, logical drives are not assigned any drive letters. You can create any number of logical drives within the extended partitions.

Master Craftsman …

Scripting with Diskpart

You can use the Diskpart command interpreter to automate disk management tasks by using scripts or batch files. Scripts are very helpful in automating tasks such as creating partitions and volumes, as well as assigning drive letters and converting disks from basic to dynamic. Scripting is particularly useful when installing Windows operating systems in a large number of computers in unattended modem using utilities such as the System Preparation tool and RIS.

Diskpart scripts run differently from other scripts. The Diskpart command interpreter works in text mode; therefore, all Diskpart scripts are given a .txt extension. Here is the syntax for running a Diskpart script:

In the preceding code, ScriptName.txt is the name of the script file. If you want to redirect the output of the Diskpart script to another file, you can use the > redirection operator. For example, if you want the output of a script file to be sent to a log file, you can use the following command syntax:

In the preceding code, LogFile.log is the name of the file to which you want to send the output of the script. Here is an example of a Diskpart script file:

After creating this file in Notepad, or the text editor of your choice, you should name it using the .txt extension. When you run this script using the Diskpart /s ScriptName.txt syntax, the following actions take place:

A primary partition with a size of 8,192 MB is created and the focus is shifted to this partition. The Assign command assigns the drive letter E: to this partition.

An extended partition with a size of 8,192 MB is created and the focus is shifted to this extended partition.

A logical drive with a size of 4,096 MB is created and the focus is shifted to this drive. The Assign command assigns the drive letter F: to this logical drive.

Another logical drive with a size of 4,096 MB is created and the focus is shifted to this logical drive. The Assign command assigns the drive letter G: to this logical drive.

As shown in this example, the scripts you write for Diskpart should normally complete all related tasks in a single script. For example, when you create volumes using a script, the same script should assign them drive letters, too.

Note

Microsoft recommends that you create a single script to complete all tasks related to a Diskpart process and avoid using multiple Diskpart scripts simultaneously. You can, however, create multiple scripts that run one after another, but there should be a gap of 15 seconds between consecutive scripts. This is because the Diskpart utility must apply the changes specified in the script to the system and close all operations before running the next script. When creating a script, you can pause between consecutive scripts by using the Timeout /t15 command.

Recovering Deleted Partitions

Partitioning a hard disk involves dividing the disk into volumes, which generally appear to the operating system as logical drives, identified by different drive letters. The disk is divided into logical drives for the purposes of performance and organization of the data. Each logical drive can be formatted separately so that each one uses a different file system. Of course, you can partition the disk as a single partition. Partitioning schemes and tools differ depending on the operating system and file system.

Contrary to popular belief, partitioning utilities do not erase the data on a disk; they only delete and manipulate the partition tables. Even though tools such as Partition Magic warn that their use will erase the data on a disk, this is not true; the warning is intended for the average user who will not be able to recover the data after using the utility. Generally, partition utilities will delete the entry for that partition in the partition table so that any space associated with the partition becomes unallocated. Even if the tool overwrites the first sector (sector 0) of the partition before removing it, a backup of the boot sector may still be available and can be restored. Professional data recovery techniques can still recover the data, although the data might be fragmented—that is, the contents of a file could be spread out in different areas of the disk and recoverable in bits and pieces.

Deleting Partitions Using Windows

You can create and delete partitions in Windows using the Computer Management (Local) console, which is used to control various aspects of your computer. To open the console, you can right-click on the My Computer icon on your desktop, and then click the Manage menu item on the context menu that appears. Alternatively, you can open the console through the Control Panel. From the Windows Start menu, select Settings and click the Control Panel menu item. When the Control Panel opens, you would then double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management. It is important to note, however, that to access this tool, you need to use an Administrator account or be a member of the Administrators group.

As shown in Figure 7.3, the Computer Management console provides access to a variety of tools that you can use to manage your computer. By expanding the Storage node in the left pane, you can then click on the Disk Management item in the console tree. When you select this item, information about the hard disks and other storage (such as DVD or CD-ROM drives) installed on your computer appears in the right portion of the screen.

Figure 7.3. Disk Management in the Computer Management Console

When you right-click on a partition, logical drive, or volume in the lower-right pane of the console, a context menu will appear with a Delete Partition menu item. If this item is enabled, clicking it will delete the partition. However, the Delete Partition menu item will not be enabled in certain circumstances, where it is impossible to delete the partition:

▪

A system volume (which contains files to boot the computer), boot volume (which contains system files), or a volume with an active paging file or crash dump (memory dump).

▪

An extended partition that isn't empty. Before deleting an extended partition, all of the logical drives in that partition must be deleted first.

Deleting Partitions from the Command Line

You also can delete partitions from the command line, using disk partitioning utilities that require you to type commands from a prompt. You can use two commands on different versions of Windows:

▪

FDISK

▪

DISKPART

Using either of these tools, you can view a listing of partitions, determine the number or drive letter of the disk, and delete any existing partitions. This practice does, however, have the same limitations that we saw previously, when discussing deleting a partition with the Computer Management console. You must be an Administrator or a member of the Administrators group, and you can't delete a system volume, a boot volume, or a volume with an active paging file or crash dump. In addition, any logical drives need to be deleted before deleting an extended partition.

FDISK

FDISK is a command line interpreter that is used to create and delete partitions on computers running MS-DOS, Windows 9x, Windows NT, or Windows Me. As shown in Table 7.4, you can use a number of switches with this command to view information and perform various actions on a hard disk. When you type FDISK without any of these switches, a series of screens will enable you to navigate through the process of partitioning the disk.

Table 7.4. FDISK Switches

Switch	Description
/MBR	Rewrites the MBR
/CMBR <disk>	Re-creates the MBR on a specific disk
/PRI: <size>	Creates a primary partition
/EXT: <size>	Creates an extended partition
/LOG: <size>	Creates a logical drive
/Q	Prevents rebooting the computer automatically after exiting FDISK
/STATUS	Shows the current status of hard drives
/ACTOK	Forces FDISK not to check disk integrity
/FPRMT	Disables prompt for FAT32 support

DISKPART

DISKPART is a command-line interpreter that is used to create and delete partitions on computers running Windows 2000, XP, or Vista. Unlike FDISK, it doesn't provide a series of menus that can be navigated to delete partitions. Instead, as shown in Figure 7.4, typing DISKPART at the prompt will activate the command-line interpreter, allowing you to enter different commands.

Figure 7.4. DISKPART

You can use a number of commands to view information on disks and partitions on your hard disk, as well as perform tasks such as creating and deleting partitions. Table 7.5 lists the commands available through DISKPART.

Table 7.5. DISKPART Commands

Switch	Description
ADD	Adds a mirror to a simple volume
ACTIVE	Marks the current partition as being the active boot partition
ASSIGN	Assigns a drive letter or mount point to the selected volume
BREAK	Breaks a mirror set
CLEAN	Clears the configuration information or all information off the disk
CONVERT	Converts the disk from one format to another. This will allow you to convert the disk from dynamic to basic, basic to dynamic, MBR to GPT, or GPT to MBR.
CREATE	Creates a volume or partition
DELETE	Deletes a missing disk, selected volume, or selected partition
DETAIL	Provides details about a disk, partition, or volume
EXIT	Exits the program
EXTEND	Extends a volume
HELP	Prints a listing of Help commands
IMPORT	Imports a disk group
LIST	Prints a list of disks, partitions, or volumes
INACTIVE	Marks the current partition as an inactive partition
ONLINE	Marks as online a disk that is currently marked as offline
REM	Used to comment scripts
REMOVE	Removes a drive letter or mount point
REPAIR	Repairs a RAID-5 volume
RESCAN	Forces DISKPART to rescan the computer for disks and volumes
RETAIN	Places a retainer partition under a simple volume
SELECT	Moves the focus on an object

Using a combination of these commands, you can delete a partition from a computer, allowing you to later create and format it in a particular file format.

Installation Scenarios

The next decision then is how you want to install Linux. There are basically three installation scenarios.

Dual-Booting

In many cases, though, you’ll probably want to install Linux on a machine that already runs some variant of Windows. There are a couple of approaches to that. This section describes dual-booting, the next one describes virtualization.

In the dual-boot scenario, you select at boot time which operating system to boot. That OS takes full control of the machine. The Linux installation will replace the standard Windows boot loader with GRUB, the GRand Unified Bootloader. GRUB then offers the option of selecting the OS to boot, as shown in Fig. 2.1.

Figure 2.1. GRUB boot menu.

While historically dual-booting has been the most popular installation scenario for average users, it is also the most complicated, because it requires reconfiguring your hard disk. The most common case is you already have a version of Windows installed on the machine, and you want to add Linux.

At this point Windows probably occupies the entire disk, and so you have to make space available for Linux. Fundamentally, this requires reducing the size of the disk partition holding Windows so you can create unallocated space for Linux. Remember that you’ll need on the order of 20 GB of disk space for Linux, so your disk must have at least that much contiguous free space. You can use the Windows defragmentation tool to put all free space at the “end” of the disk.

Windows 7 has a slick disk management tool that handles partitioning. From the Start menu, select Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management. In the Computer Management dialog, select Storage > Disk Management. That displays the menu shown in Fig. 2.2. This shows five partitions, the largest of which is identified as drive C:.

Figure 2.2. Windows 7 Disk Manager.

A little background on disk partitioning is in order here. In the DOS/Windows/PC world, a disk can have up to four primary partitions. Any of these primary partitions can be designated an extended partition, which in turn can hold several logical partitions. There’s no fixed upper limit on the number of logical partitions an extended partition can hold, but owing to the way in which Linux accesses partitions, 12 is the practical upper limit on a single disk drive.

Take a look at the partition list in Fig. 2.2, and compare it with the list in Listing 2.1 derived from the Linux fdisk command on the same disk. This particular machine is already configured for dual booting. Note that fdisk reports six partitions, whereas the Windows Disk Manager only shows five. /dev/sda4 is identified as an extended partition. sda5/ and sda6/ are logical partitions within sda4/. The Disk Manager doesn’t show the extended partition.

Listing 2.1. fdisk output.

Oddly, the Disk Manager identifies all five partitions as primary, but fdisk shows us that the two on the right of the graphic representation are in fact logical partitions within an extended partition.

With that background, it’s time to create some empty space for Linux. But first, before you make any changes to a disk drive, Always back up your data. Even though these tools are supposed to work, stuff happens. So be prepared. Right-click on the OS (C:) partition, and select Shrink volume… Note incidentally that Windows tends to call partitions volumes. The Disk Manager queries the partition to see how small it can be made. This can take a while on a large disk. Finally, the dialog of Fig. 2.3 appears. While the labels are a little confusing, this is telling us that 113 MB can be removed from the C: partition. Clearly, you want to leave some space free on the C: drive, so you wouldn’t want to take all 113 MB.

Figure 2.3. Shrink partition.

Subsequently, the Linux installation will format only the partition(s) that will be used by Linux.

Partitions and Volumes

Table 4.2 defined for us what a partition is in general terms. The terms partitions and volumes are used interchangeably. After you install a new disk, you must create at least one partition on the new disk. Windows Vista supports two types of volumes:

Basic volumes

Dynamic volumes

Basic volumes are partitions on a basic disk. The storage for a basic volume must reside on a single physical disk. Basic volumes can only be simple volumes. So a basic volume is made up of:

Primary partitions (Master Boot Record [MBR.] and Globally Unique Identifier Partition Table [GPT types])

Logical drives within extended partitions (only available with MBR partition styles)

Dynamic volumes reside on dynamic disks and include simple and spanned volumes. Simple volume types under dynamic volumes are the equivalent of primary partitions. Some rules to be aware of with simple volumes on dynamic disks:

If only one dynamic disk exists, you can only create simple volumes.

Simple volumes can be increased in size to include any unallocated space on a physical dynamic disk or even on a separate disk.

Spanned volumes are able to combine areas of unallocated space from two or more disks into one logical volume. The areas of unallocated space do not have to be the same size. In other words, you can have one drive that is 100GB and another that is 50GB created as a spanned volume and appearing as one logical volume. When implementing spanned volumes, keep these points in mind:

NTFS or unformatted volumes can only be extended.

After the creation of a spanned volume, you cannot delete any portion of it without deleting the entire volume.

You cannot stripe spanned volumes.

Spanned volumes do not provide fault tolerance.

Note

Windows Vista no longer supports the use of software RAID, which under Windows XP and NT was available. Only server versions of Windows such as the upcoming Longhorn Server will support them.

What we need to do now is explore the different types of partitions available to us in Windows Vista so we make the best decision possible for our own scenarios. We know that a basic disk that can only contain basic volumes can have up to four partitions, but if we go further, we see that this limitation actually applies to those disks that use a Master Boot Record (MBR). Basic disks using GUID Partition Tables (GPT) can have as many as 128 partitions, but more about partition styles later. The following are descriptions of the partition types available in Windows Vista.

Primary Partition The partition on a drive that holds and starts the operating system. Multiple primary partitions can reside on a disk, but not all have to hold an operating system.

Extended Partition A partition that does not hold a drive letter in itself but can be divided into logical drives. An extended partition is not formatted; the logical drives that reside on it are instead.

Active Partition The partition from which x86-based systems start up. The active partition must be on the first physical drive (Disk 0).

Boot Partition The partition where the Windows system files are located.

System Partition The partition that contains the bootstrap files that Windows uses to start the system. The system partition displays the boot menu.

Now that we’ve reviewed volumes and partitions and the types available, we must define what partition styles are and discuss the two varieties available.

Partition Style

Most administrators who have not installed Windows 2003 Server with Service Pack 1 or the 64-bit version of Windows XP Professional will find the concept of partition styles a bit foreign. A partition style is the method that Windows Vista uses to organize partitions on a disk. Windows XP Professional only supported MBR partition styles on x86 computers while also supporting GPT on its 64-bit version. Windows Vista supports both on the x86 architecture.

Master Boot Record

The Master Boot Record (MBR) is the traditional partition style. The MBR contains a partition table that describes where the partitions are located on the disk. Before Windows 2003 SP1 and XP Professional 64-bit, administrators never had to worry about choosing the MBR, it was the only style supported. MBR disks can support up to four primary partitions or three primaries and one extended. Within the extended partition you can created unlimited logical drives.

Globally Unique Identifier Partition Table

The Globally Unique Identifier Partition Table (GPT) provides a more flexible way of partitioning disks than the older MBR scheme. It was introduced as part of Intel’s Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI). This specification defines a new model for the interface between operating systems and platform firmware. You can find more information about EFI at www.intel.com/technology/efi. Although it may seem a bit more confusing with the use of GPT, this partition style can reside on either basic disks or dynamic disks. GPT in Windows Vista supports up to 18 exabytes and 128 partitions per disk. Since GPT does not limit administrators to four primary partitions, extended partitions and logical drives are not available with it. Figure 4.6 shows us being asked what type of partition style we want during the installation of a new hard drive.

Figure 4.6. The Partition Style during a New Drive Installation

Configuring a New Disk

In this section, we will configure and manage a new disk under Windows Vista. We will initialize the disk, create volumes, choose the file system for each volume, and even demonstrate how to shrink a volume. We’ll start by partitioning a new drive after it has been installed.

In our example (as shown in Figure 4.6), when we first installed our new drive, we decided to use the MBR partition style. After selecting the partition style, you then decide if you want to use a basic disk or dynamic disk. As you know already, we converted a basic disk to a dynamic disk using the diskpart command. Now we need to create a volume on our new drive. In disk management, we must right-click the area of the new drive labeled as unallocated (shown in Figure 4.7). As you can see, the only option we have is to create a new simple volume. Remember, the reason for this is because we only have one disk we are creating this dynamic volume for.

Figure 4.7. Selecting a New Simple Volume

Now Windows Vista will run through a new simple volume wizard (as shown in Figure 4.8). At the New Simple Wizard initial screen, click Next.

Figure 4.8. The New Simple Volume Wizard

Next you are asked to specify the volume size. In our example, we will only choose 4GB (see Figure 4.9). After you have specified the volume size, click Next.

Figure 4.9. Specifying Volume Size

Now we assign the drive letter E to our newly created simple volume (see Figure 4.10). After doing so, click Next.

Figure 4.10. Assigning a Drive Letter to a Simple Volume

Now we come to the part regarding what file system we want to format this volume with. We will cover file systems in the next section, but as you can see in Figure 4.11, we have the choice of FAT, FAT32, and NTFS. Select NTFS and change the volume label to read Simple Volume. Keep the Allocation unit size as the default. After selecting NTFS, change the volume label and click Next.

Figure 4.11. Choosing the File System Type

We now come to the last screen in creating our simple volume. The Simple Volume Wizard provides us with a list of the settings we’ve chosen (see Figure 4.12). Since we know these are the settings we want, click Finish. If by chance you saw a setting you didn’t mean to select, just click the Back button to the point where you made your mistake and make the correction there.

Figure 4.12. The New Simple Volume Wizard Completed

Once formatting of the new volume is complete, you should see the new simple volume listed in disk management, as shown in Figure 4.13.

Figure 4.13. The New Simple Volume Is Created

Something new in Windows Vista is the ability to shrink a volume without the use of third-party software. Shrinking a volume allows administrators to easily repartition drives without having to completely remove and re-create them. To shrink a volume, go to Computer Management | Storage | Disk Management. Select the volume you intend to shrink and right-click it. You’ll see the option Shrink Volume, as shown in Figure 4.14.

Figure 4.14. Shrink Volume

When you select Shrink Volume, Windows Vista will query the volume for available shrink space. Next, you will see the screen to choose what size you want to shrink the volume to. In our example, we have chosen to shrink it to 1.95GB, but it will appear as 2.05GB, as shown in Figure 4.15. Click the Shrink button.

Figure 4.15. Choosing the Size for Volume Shrinkage

After Windows Vista has shrunk the volume, it will appear as shown in Figure 4.16. Our volume labeled Simple Volume is now 2.05GB, and the amount of unallocated space is up to 7.95GB.

Figure 4.16. The End Results of Volume Shrinking