Configuring Windows 7 (Training Kit) - Part 27 pot

In addition to these new features, you can use Disk Management to convert disks from basic to dynamic and less typically, from basic to dynamic and change the partition style.. When you

4 To repair detected problems automatically, select the Automatically Fix File System

Errors check box If you do not select this check box, the disk check reports problems

but does not fix them

5 To perform a thorough disk check, select the Scan For And Attempt Recovery Of Bad

Sectors check box The scan then attempts to find and repair physical errors on the

hard disk itself Note, however, that this can take considerable time Figure 4-33 shows

the Check Disk dialog box with both options selected

FIgUre 4-33 Scanning for file errors and physical errors

6 Click Start

7 If you selected Automatically Fix File System Errors and specified a disk that is in use

(for example, the partition that contains Windows), you are prompted to reschedule

the disk check for the next time you restart your computer In this case, ensure that

your work is saved and all windows are closed and then restart your computer

Setting Disk Policies with Local Group Policy Editor

Removable media is convenient, but it can also pose a security threat Confidential company

data saved to a USB flash memory device can easily be lost or stolen, as can data downloaded

to an MP3 player or cell phone If the computer can burn CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs, these can

also be mislaid (they make very convenient bookmarks and get lost in libraries)

As an alternative to protecting your data with BitLocker, you can prohibit users from

writing data to removable media You can also prevent users from downloading data and

running software stored on removable media, which could contain malware

On a stand-alone client computer, you can do this through Local Group Policy Editor

In an enterprise, you would edit domain Group Policy at a domain controller and apply it

to all clients in the domain In Local Group Policy Editor, expand Computer Configuration

and then expand Administrative Templates You next expand System and click Removable

Storage Access The policies that you can configure are shown in Figure 4-34 Note that “WPD

devices” refers to cell phones, media players, auxiliary displays, CE devices, and so on

FIgUre 4-34 Configurable policies control the use of removable media

You can enable, disable, or otherwise configure the following policies:

n Time (In Seconds) To Force Reboot

n CD And DVD: Deny Execute, Read, or Write Access

n Custom Classes: Deny Read or Write Access

n Floppy Drives: Deny Execute, Read, or Write Access

n Removable Disks: Deny Execute, Read, or Write Access

n All Removable Storage Classes: Deny All Access

n All Removable Storage: Allow Direct Access In Remote Sessions

n Tape Drives: Deny Execute, Read, or Write Access

n WPD Devices: Deny Execute, Read, or Write Access

Most of these policies are self-explanatory If you enable the Time (In Seconds) To Force Reboot policy, for example, you need to specify the amount of time that you want the system

to wait until a reboot If you disable or do not configure this setting, the system does not force a reboot and any access right policies you configure do not take effect until the system

is restarted Configuring the Custom Classes access rights policies lets you specify removable storage classes by entering the class GUID

The Removable Disks policies do not apply to CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, or floppy disks and typically are used to control access to USB flash memory, portable media players, and cellular phones However, if you enable the All Removable Storage Classes: Deny All Access policy, this

denies execute, read, and write permission to all types of removable media and overwrites

any other configured removable media access rights policies If you enable the All Removable

Storage: Allow Direct Access policy in remote sessions, remote users can access removable

storage devices in remote sessions

Detailed step-by step instructions to disable downloads to USB flash memory are given in

the practice later in this lesson

Changing Disk Type and Partition Style

Chapter 2, “Configuring System Images,” introduced the Disk Management tool and discussed

the new features of the tools that let you create, attach, mount, detach, and delete a VHD

file In addition to these new features, you can use Disk Management to convert disks from

basic to dynamic (and less typically, from basic to dynamic) and change the partition style

Windows 7 also provides the Diskpart command-line tool for disk management

note FDISK

Windows 7 does not support the Fdisk tool that was used for disk management in earlier

versions of Windows.

You need Administrator or Backup Operator credentials to perform most Disk Management

tasks You can use the tool for managing hard disks and the volumes or partitions that they

contain You can initialize disks, create volumes, and format volumes with the FAT, FAT32, or

NTFS file systems Disk Management lets you perform disk-related tasks without needing to

restart the system and most configuration changes take effect immediately

Working with Partitions

Disk Management enables you to extend and shrink partitions directly from the interface

When you right-click a volume in the Disk Management console, you can choose whether

to create a basic, spanned, or striped partition directly from the menu If you add more than

four partitions to a basic disk, you are prompted to convert the disk to dynamic or to the GPT

partition style

Disk Management allows you to change disks between various types and partition styles

However, some of the operations are irreversible (unless you reformat the drive) You should

consider carefully the disk type and partition style that is most appropriate for your application

You can convert between the following partition styles:

n MBR can be converted to GPT if there are no volumes on the disk

n MBR can be converted to dynamic, but the disk may become unbootable

n GPT can be converted to MBR if there are no volumes on the disk

n GPT can be converted to dynamic, but the disk may become unbootable

n Dynamic can be converted to MBR if there are no volumes on the disk

n Dynamic can be converted to GBT if there are no volumes on the disk

If you add a disk to a computer, it appears as Not Initialized Before you can use a disk, you must first initialize it If you start Disk Management after adding a disk, the Initialize Disk Wizard appears You can also right-click an uninitialized disk and click Initialize Disk The disk

is initialized as a basic disk and you can select whether to use the MBR or GPT partition style One advantage of GPT disks is that you can have more than four partitions on each disk GPT is also required for disks larger than 2 TB You can change a basic disk from MBR to GPT partition style so long as the disk does not contain any partitions or volumes You first need

to back up the data on the MBR disk so you can restore it after the conversion

You can use Disk Management to remove any volumes or partitions on the disk you want

to convert, and then to implement the conversion Right-click each volume in turn, and then click Delete Volume When there are no volumes or partitions on the disk, right-click it and click Convert To GPT Disk

note reMOVaBLe MeDIa

You cannot use the GPT partition style on removable media.

To use the Diskpart command-line utility to change a disk from MBR to GPT partition style, perform the following procedure:

1 Back up the data on the basic MBR disk that you want to convert

2. Open an elevated command prompt and enter diskpart

3. At the DISKPART> prompt, enter list volume Note all the volume numbers

4. For each volume listed, at the DISKPART> prompt, enter select volume <volumenumber>.

5. For each volume, at the DISKPART> prompt, enter delete volume.

6. At the DISKPART> prompt, enter list disk Note the disk number of the disk that you

want to convert

7. At the DISKPART> prompt, enter select disk <disknumber>.

8. At the DISKPART> prompt, enter convert gpt.

You can also use both Disk Manager and the Diskpart utility to convert a GPT disk to an MBR disk The procedure is almost identical to converting an MBR disk to a GPT disk You must back up all data and then delete all volumes In Disk Manager, you right-click the disk and click Convert To MBR Disk If you are using Diskpart, you enter the Diskpart command

convert mbr as the final command

Using Basic and Dynamic Disks

Basic disks use the original MS-DOS-style MBR partition tables to store primary and logical disk partitioning information Dynamic disks use a private region of the disk to maintain

a Logical Disk Manager (LDM) database The LDM database contains volume types, offsets, memberships, and drive letters of each volume The LDM database is also replicated, so each dynamic disk knows about every other dynamic disk configuration This feature makes dynamic disks more reliable and recoverable than basic disks

If you move dynamic disks between computers, however, you might not be able to move

the dynamic disks back to the original host If you need to move dynamic disks, move all the

dynamic disks from a computer at the same time, and make sure that they are all online and

running on the destination computer before you try to import them The disk group name

and the identity of the primary disk group of the host system is always retained if a dynamic

disk is present If there are no dynamic disks already on the destination computer, that

computer ends up with the same disk group name as the source computer when the disks are

moved to it and you cannot then move the disks back to the source computer

Microsoft recommends that before you convert basic disks to dynamic disks, you should

determine whether you require the features provided by dynamic disks, for example spanned

volumes, striped volumes, mirrored volumes, or RAID-5 volumes If you do not intend to use

these features, it may be best to use basic disks You can change a basic disk into a dynamic

disk using either Disk Management or the Diskpart command-line utility

CautIon CONVertINg DISKS

Before you convert disks, close any programs that are running on those disks.

quick Check

n What partition type enables you to have more than four partitions on each disk?

quick Check answer

n GPT

To convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk by using Disk Management, right-click the disk

you want to convert and click Convert To Dynamic Disk

To convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk by using Diskpart, you first select the disk you

want to convert and then, at the DISKPART> prompt, enter convert dynamic You do this in

the practice later in this lesson

Once converted, a dynamic disk does not contain basic volumes When you convert a basic

disk to a dynamic disk, any existing partitions or logical drives on the basic disk become

simple volumes on the dynamic disk After you convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, you

cannot change the dynamic volumes back to partitions Instead, you must delete all dynamic

volumes on the disk and then convert the dynamic disk to a basic disk If you want to keep

your data, you must first back it up or move it to another volume

Converting a dynamic disk back to a basic disk is a much less common procedure and

can have serious implications (for example, the requirement to back up data and delete all

dynamic volumes) You can change a dynamic disk back into a basic disk using either Disk

Management or the Diskpart command-line utility

To use Disk Management, you must first back up all volumes on the disk you want to

convert Then, in Disk Management, right-click each volume and click Delete Volume on each

of them When all volumes on the disk have been deleted, right-click the disk and then click Convert To Basic Disk A dynamic disk must not have any volumes nor contain any data if you want to change it back to a basic disk Figure 4-35 shows the Disk Management controls for converting an MBR disk to a GPT disk and for converting a basic disk to a dynamic disk

FIgUre 4-35 Controls for converting MBR and basic disks

To change a dynamic disk back to a basic disk using the Diskpart utility, perform the following procedure:

1 Back up all volumes on the disk you want to convert

2. Open an elevated command prompt and enter diskpart.

3. At the DISKPART> prompt, enter list disk Note the number of the disk you want to

convert

4. At the DISKPART> prompt, enter select disk <disknumber>.

5. At the DISKPART> prompt, enter detail disk <disknumber>.

6. For each volume on the disk, at the DISKPART> prompt, enter select volume=

<volumenumber> and then enter delete volume.

7. At the DISKPART> prompt, enter select disk <disknumber>

8. At the DISKPART> prompt, enter convert basic.

Moving Disks to Another Computer

Before you move disks to another computer, you should use Disk Management to make sure

the status of the volumes on the disks is Healthy If the status is not Healthy, you should repair

the volumes before you move the disks To verify the volume status, check the Status column

in the Disk Management console

Your next step is to uninstall the disks you want to move In the Computer Management

Navigation pane (the left pane), open Device Manager In the device list, double-click Disk

Drives Right-click each of the disks you want to uninstall in turn and then click Uninstall In

the Confirm Device Removal dialog box, click OK

If the disks that you want to move are dynamic disks, right-click the disks that you want to

move in Disk Management, and then click Remove Disk

After you have removed dynamic disks, or if you are moving basic disks, you can

discon-nect the disk drives physically If the disks are external, you can now unplug them from the

computer If they are internal, turn off the computer and then remove the disks

If the disks are external, plug them into the destination computer If the disks are internal,

make sure the computer is turned off and then install the disks in that computer Start the

destination computer and follow the instructions on the Found New Hardware dialog box

On the destination computer, open Disk Management, click Action, and then click Rescan

Disks Right-click any disk marked Foreign, click Import Foreign Disks, and then follow the

on-screen instructions

When you move basic volumes to another computer, they receive the next available drive

letter on that computer Dynamic volumes retain the drive letter they had on the previous

computer If a dynamic volume did not have a drive letter on the previous computer, it does

not receive a drive letter when moved to another computer If the drive letter is already used

on the computer where it is moved, a volume receives the next available drive letter If an

administrator has used the mountvol /n or the diskpart automount command to prevent new

volumes from being added to the system, volumes moved from another computer are not

mounted and do not receive a drive letter To use the volume, you must mount it manually

and assign it a drive letter using Disk Management or the diskpart and mountvol commands

If you are moving spanned, striped, mirrored, or RAID-5 volumes, move all disks containing

the volume at once Otherwise, the volumes on the disks cannot be brought online and are

not accessible except to delete them

You can move multiple disks from different computers to a single destination computer

by installing the disks, opening Disk Management, right-clicking any of the new disks, and

then clicking Import Foreign Disks When importing multiple disks from different computers,

always import all of the disks from one computer at a time

Disk Management displays the condition of the volumes on the disks before they are

imported Review this information carefully, because it can indicate what will happen to each

volume on these disks once the disks have been imported

Reactivating a Missing or Offline Dynamic Disk

A dynamic disk may become Missing when it is corrupted, powered down, or disconnected It may become Offline if it is corrupted or intermittently unavailable, or if you attempt to import

a foreign (dynamic) disk and the import fails An error icon appears on the Offline disk Only dynamic disks display the Missing or Offline status and can be reactivated You reactivate

a dynamic disk by right-clicking it in Disk Management and clicking Reactivate Disk

You can also use the Diskpart utility As in previous procedures, you list the disks and identify the disk number of the disk you need to reactivate You select the disk by its disk

number and enter the online command at the DISKPART> prompt

You may instead choose to remove a missing dynamic disk You first delete all volumes on the missing disk using either Disk Management or the Diskpart utility In Disk Management you then right-click the disk and click Remove If you are using Diskpart, you list the disks to

discover the disk number, select the disk by its number, and enter the delete disk command at

the DISKPART> prompt

Managing Disk Volumes

Windows 7 enables you to expand and contract volumes without data loss and without requiring a reboot You can create simple volumes, spanned volumes, striped volumes, mirrored volumes, and striped volumes with parity on dynamic disks You can also create simple volumes on basic disks The options to use unallocated portions of the disk to create volumes are shown in Figure 4-36

FIgUre 4-36 Volume options

Creating a Simple Volume

In Windows 7 (and Windows Vista), simple volumes can include both partitions on basic

disks and simple volumes on dynamic disks If all your requirements can be met by a simple

volume, Microsoft recommends that you use a basic disk

To create a simple volume using Disk Management, perform the following procedure:

1 Open Disk Management

2 Right-click an unallocated space on your chosen disks and choose New Simple Volume

This starts the New Simple Volume Wizard

3 On the Specify Volume Size page, enter the size in megabytes of the volume you want

to create The default is the maximum space available on the disk

4 On the Assign Drive Letter Or Path page, assign a drive letter or a mount point

5 On the Format Partition page, choose the formatting options

6 On the Summary page, read the information provided If this is satisfactory, click Finish

This procedure creates simple volumes on dynamic disks and primary partitions on basic

GPT disks For basic MBR disks, the first three volumes created will be primary partitions

The fourth simple volume on a basic MBR disk is created as an extended partition and

a logical drive Further simple volumes on the basic MBR disk are logical drives

If you create a simple volume using the Diskpart tool, you need to decide whether the disk

on which you intend to create the volume is a dynamic or basic disk Using Diskpart, you must

create a partition on a basic disk and a volume on a dynamic disk To create a simple volume

on a dynamic disk, enter a command with the following syntax at the DISKPART> prompt:

create volume simple [size=<n>] [disk=<n>]

Creating a Spanned Volume

A spanned volume uses the free space on more than one physical hard disk to create

a volume The portions of disk used to create the volume do not need to be the same size and

can include more than one portion of free space on a single disk A spanned volume increases

the risk of failure, leading to data loss The failure of any disk involved in the spanned volume

makes the entire volume unavailable

Spanned volumes offer no significant performance benefit To achieve a speed benefit

with multiple disks, you must use striping, such as that provided by RAID arrays (for example,

RAID-0 or RAID-5) The advantage of a spanned volume is that the portions of disk space

need not be the same size and more than one of them can be on the same disk RAID arrays

are discussed later in this lesson

You create a spanned volume on dynamic disks To create a spanned volume using Disk

Management, perform the following procedure:

1 Open Disk Management

2 Right-click a free-space segment that you want to include in the spanned volume and

then select New Spanned Volume from the shortcut menu The New Spanned Volume

Wizard starts

3 On the Select Disks page, select the disks you want to include and then click Add to add them to the spanned volume Select each disk in the Selected column and specify the amount of space to use on that disk for the spanned volume

4 On the Assign Drive Letter Or Path page, the default is to assign the next available drive letter to the new volume You can also mount the volume on an empty NTFS folder on an existing volume

5 On the Format Volume page, choose the formatting options for the new volume Windows 7 supports only NTFS formatting from the Disk Management snap-in

To format with FAT or FAT32, you need to use the Diskpart tool

6 On the Summary page, read the information provided If this is satisfactory, click Finish

To create a spanned volume using Diskpart, you need to make sure that the disks to be used are converted to dynamic Then you create a simple volume on the first disk of the spanned volume, extend the volume to the second disk, and then add any additional disks involved in the span Finally, you assign the volume to a drive letter or mount point

The Diskpart routine to create a spanned volume depends on whether the disk selected

is basic or dynamic On a basic disk, you can create a spanned volume only if you have free space on the same disk as the selected volume and contiguous to it You then enter

a command with the syntax extend [size=<n>] If you omit the size parameter, the spanned disk is as large as the available unallocated space permits If you have a dynamic disk with

a simple or spanned volume, this can be spanned on to a second disk that has unallocated space After you select a volume you use a command with the syntax extend [size=<n>] [disk=<n>] If the disk parameter is omitted, the spanned volume is created on the same disk

as the selected volume If the size parameter is omitted, the spanned volume is as large as the amount of unallocated space allows

Creating a Striped Volume (RAID-0)

A striped volume uses the free space on more than one physical hard disk to create the volume It enables the operating system to write across all disks in small blocks, or stripes, distributing the load across the disks in the volume Data is written to a stripe on the first disk, the next block of data is written to a stripe on the next disk, and so on The data can be split into stripe-sized blocks and written to all the disks in the stripe set simultaneously A striped (RAID-0) volume requires at least two disks

When data is read from the volume, it can be accessed simultaneously on all the disks

in the volume RAID-0 therefore significantly improves both read and write performance The portions of disk used to create the volume need to be the same size; the size of the smallest free space included in the striped volume is the determinant A striped volume is not fault-tolerant If one disk fails, the entire volume fails

You create a striped volume on dynamic disks To create a striped volume using Disk Management, perform the following procedure:

1 Open Disk Management

2 Right-click a free-space segment that you want to include in the striped volume and click New Striped Volume The New Striped Volume Wizard opens