Windows Vista Security: Praxisorientierte Sicherheit für Profis

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Chapter 19: Managing Disks and Drives

Disk Management displays a warning prompt (see Figure 19-6). If you are sure

you want to delete the volume, click Yes.

3. In Disk Management, right-click the disk you want to convert and select Con-

vert to Basic Disk. This changes the dynamic disk to a basic disk, and you can

then partition and format the disk for use.

Preparing Disks for Use

Disk Management uses the same set of dialog boxes and wizards whether you are

partitioning basic disks or dynamic disks. By default, 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 that is the same size as the

extended partition. Any subsequent volumes are created in the extended partitions as

logical drives automatically.

In Disk Management, you create partitions, logical drives, and simple volumes on an

internal or external hard disk drive 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.

2. In the New Simple Volume Wizard, click Next.

3. On the Specify Volume Size page, shown in Figure 19-7, size the volume within

the maximum and minimum size limits. If you want the volume to use all the

space available, set the volume size equal to the value shown for the maximum

disk space in MB. Click Next.

4. On the Assign Drive Letter or Path page, shown in Figure 19-8, use the “Assign

the following drive letter” list to assign a drive letter to the volume, and then

click Next.

Figure 19-6. Confirming that you want to delete the volume

Preparing Disks for Use

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On most systems, the drive letter B and drive letters E through Z are

available, with drive letter A reserved for a floppy disk, C assigned to

the primary disk, and D assigned to the CD/DVD drive. If your com-

puter has a secondary hard disk, a secondary CD/DVD drive, or both,

you may find that drive letter E or the drive letters E and F are already

assigned as well.

Figure 19-7. Setting the volume size

Figure 19-8. Assigning a drive letter

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Chapter 19: Managing Disks and Drives

On the Format Partition page, shown in Figure 19-9, use the “File system” list to set

the filesystem type. The options you have depend on the size of the volume and type

of device, and they include FAT, FAT32, and NTFS. NTFS is selected by default in

most cases. If you create a filesystem as FAT or FAT32, you can later convert it to

NTFS. However, you can’t convert NTFS partitions to FAT or FAT32.

1. The “Allocation unit size” list sets the cluster size for the filesystem. A cluster is a

logical grouping of file sectors. In most cases, you’ll want the “Allocation unit

size” list to be set to Default. This allows Windows Vista to optimize the cluster

size based on the volume size.

On the Windows operating system, most disk drives use a fixed sector

size of 512 bytes, and because of this, a cluster is typically made up of

multiple sectors. For example, if the cluster size is 4,096 bytes, there

will be four 512-byte file sectors per cluster. If you create large quanti-

ties of small files, you might want to use a smaller cluster size, such as

512 or 1,024 bytes. With these settings, small files use less disk space.

With that said, it is important to point out that the disk drive industry

is transitioning to large-sector disks. See http://support.microsoft.com/

kb/923332/en-us for more information.

2. The “Volume label” text box sets a text label for the volume. By default, the

label is set to “New volume.”

Figure 19-9. Setting the formatting options