Working with Basic Disks

When you first install Windows 7 on a new computer or add a new disk to an existing Windows 7 computer, the disk appears in Disk Management as a basic disk. Windows 7 enables you to create a new partition (AKA a simple volume) from the free space on a new or existing disk. This partition can be a primary, extended, or logical volume. Keep in mind that a single basic disk can contain up to four primary partitions or three primary partitions plus an extended partition; the extended partition can contain any number of logical drives. Use the following procedure to create a partition:

1. Right-click Computer and select Manage from the shortcut menu.
2. Select Disk Management in the left pane.
3. Locate the disk in the right pane that contains the unallocated space where the new volume will reside.
4. Right-click the unallocated space of the disk, and select New Simple Volume from the shortcut menu.
5. The New Simple Volume Wizard starts. Click Next.
6. On the Specify Volume Size page, type the size of the partition in megabytes and then click Next.
7. On the Assign Drive Letter or Path page, accept the drive letter provided or use the drop-down list to select a different letter. Then click Next.
8. On the Format Partition page, choose the file system (FAT, FAT32, or NTFS) to format the partition. Provide a volume label name or accept the default of New Volume (this name will appear in the Computer window). If formatting with NTFS, you can modify the allocation unit size and/or enable file and folder compression. When done, click Next.
9. Review the information provided on the completion page and then click Finish. Windows 7 creates and formats the partition and displays its information in the Disk Management snap-in.

On a basic disk, Disk Management also enables you to perform several other management activities. You can extend, shrink, or delete volumes as necessary. Extending a volume adds any unallocated space to the volume. Right-click the volume and choose Extend Volume. The Extend Volume Wizard informs you what space is available and enables you to add additional space or select a smaller amount of space. Modify the amounts in megabytes as required, click Next, and then click Finish to extend the volume.

NOTE If you add additional space on another disk from the Available column in the Extend Volume Wizard, you will be creating a spanned volume. The wizard will ask you to convert the disks to dynamic storage. More about this later in this tutorial.

Shrinking a partition enables you to free up space to be used on a different partition. To do so, right-click the desired partition and choose Shrink Volume. In the Shrink Volume dialog box type the amount of space you want to shrink the volume by (note the size after shrink to avoid overshrinking the volume). Then click Shrink.

To view how a partition is configured, you can look at its properties in the Disk Management utility. Right-click the partition and select Properties from the shortcut menu. The Properties dialog box that appears has the following tabs (not all tabs will appear if the disk is not formatted with the NTFS file system):

• General: This tab provides an immediate view of the space allocation on the disk in a pie chart. The General tab also enables you to type a volume name and to click a button that executes the Disk Cleanup graphical utility. This utility enables you to remove unnecessary files from your disk such as the Temporary Internet Files folder, downloaded program install files, and the Recycle Bin.
• Tools: This tab has the following three buttons. We discuss the first two later in this tutorial.

  -Check now: Executes the GUI version of Chkdsk.
  -Defragment now: Executes the GUI version of Defrag.
  -Back up now: Starts the Back Up or Restore Your Files program, which enables you to configure backup and restore options.

• Hardware: Displays the storage device hardware for the computer. You can obtain properties for any device, similar to that obtained from Device Manager, by selecting it and clicking Properties.
• Sharing: Enables you to share the disk so that others can access information on it. Doing this for the entire drive is not considered a good practice. It is generally unnecessary because the computer automatically generates an administrative share for each partition whenWindows starts.
• Security: Enables you to assign access permissions to files and folders on the disk.
• Previous Versions: Enables you to locate older versions of files or folders that might have been created from Windows Backup or the Volume Shadow Copy Service.
• Quota: Enables you to assign disk quotas to users on the disk. This lets you limit the amount of space used on the disk by an individual user, who will receive a Disk Full message if he attempts to use more space than assigned to his quota.
• Customize: Enables you to optimize folders on the disk for purposes such as general items, documents, pictures, music, or videos. You can also choose to display a different icon that will appear in the Computer window or to restore default settings.

You can delete a logical drive or partition easily from within the Disk Management utility. Simply right-click the logical drive and select Delete Volume from the shortcut menu. A prompt appears to verify that you want to have the logical drive or partition deleted or if you want to back the data up. Click Yes to continue or No to first back the data up. When you click Yes, Windows 7 deletes the drive or partition. Windows 7 prevents you from deleting the system partition, the boot partition, or any partition that contains an active paging file. Extended partitions can be deleted only if they are empty of data and logical drives.