Windows XP makes drive letter and path configuration easy. You can assign a drive any alphabet letter, and you can also assign a drive to an empty NTFS folder. If you want to make a change to a dynamic disk volume, simply right-click the volume in the Disk Management console, and click Change Drive Letter and Paths. A Change Drive Letter and Paths window appears, as shown in Figure 7-4.
Figure 7-4: Change Drive Letter and Paths window.
From this window, you can perform the following actions:
◆ Add — If you click the Add button, a second window appears where you can mount the drive to an empty NTFS folder (which is discussed later in this section). You cannot assign multiple drive letters for the same drive.
◆ Change — If you click the Change button, the Change Drive Letter or Path window appears, as shown in Figure 7-5. You can choose a different drive letter from the drop-down menu.
Figure 7-5: Change option.
◆ Remove — You can also remove the drive letter. Dynamic disks do not require that a drive letter or path identify a drive. However, some pro- grams might not function if you remove the drive letter, nor will you be able to access the drive.
Aside from assigning a different drive letter, you can also mount a volume to a local, empty NTFS folder. The purpose is to give you freedom and flexibility beyond the 26-letter alphabet limitation. When you mount a volume to an empty NTFS folder, a drive path is used instead of a drive number. For example, say that you have a local volume that is only used for storage. You could create an NTFS folder called Storage, and mount the drive to the empty storage volume. You can then access the drive by simply accessing C:\Storage, just as you would a folder. The end result is that you can have an unlimited number of drives and use them like folders rather than standard drive letters that you must keep track of. You can use both a drive letter and a mounted volume on the same drive, if you like. Keep in
mind that the drive must be mounted to an empty folder. After the mount takes place, you can move data to that folder to store it on the volume.
Remember that the mounting option only works on NTFS folders. You cannot mount to a folder on a FAT drive.
To mount a drive to an empty NTFS folder, just follow these steps:
1. In the Disk Management window, right-click the volume that you want to mount to an empty NTFS folder and click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
2. In the Change Drive Letter and Paths window, click the Add button.
3. In the Add Drive Letter or Path window, shown in Figure 7-6, select the mount radio button, and then enter the path to the folder that you want to mount, or click the Browse button to select the folder.
Figure 7-6: Folder mount option.
4. If you Browse for the folder, a browse window appears, as shown Figure 7-7. You can locate the folder or create a new one by clicking the New Folder button. Make your selection and click OK.
Figure 7-7: Browse for or create a new NTFS folder.
5. Click OK again in the Add Drive Letter or Path window.
Working with Disk Volumes
Using dynamic disks, you open a world of management possibilities, and you lose the restrictions you often faced with basic disks. When a disk is first converted to a dynamic disk, it will appear in the disk console as unallocated space. This means that the disk has no volumes and has not been formatted. The disk is not usable by the operating system in its current state. Figure 7-8 shows you an unallocated disk in the Disk Management console. This disk has been converted to dynamic, but has no volumes and no file system. To use a dynamic disk, you’ll need to create and format disk volumes. The following sections show you the different kinds of volumes that are available to you and how to create them.
Figure 7-8: Browse for or create a new NTFS folder.
Creating Simple Volumes
A simple volume is a standard disk volume. It is a unit of disk space that has been configured and formatted so that it can be used to store data. A hard disk can be formatted as one volume, or you can format a portion of it so that you can use multiple disk volumes. The following steps show you how to create a simple disk volume.
1. In the Disk Management console, right-click the dynamic disk’s unallo- cated space and click New Volume.
2. The New Volume Wizard appears. Click Next to continue.
3. In the Select Volume Type window, shown in Figure 7-9, click the Simple radio button and click Next.
4. In the Select Disks window, shown in Figure 7-10, select the disk that you want to configure (which is already selected for you under this wizard), then enter the size of the volume (in megabytes) that you want to create.
The maximum amount of space available is listed here for you, as well.
Click Next.
5. In the Assign Drive Letter or Path window, choose a drive, assign an empty NTFS folder, or do not assign either. Click Next.
6. In the Format Volume window, shown in Figure 7-11, you can choose to format the volume or not, and you can choose to use the quick format feature and enable file and folder compression for the volume. Make your selections and click Next.
Figure 7-9: Choose the Simple volume option.
Figure 7-10: Select the disk and the desired megabyte space for the volume.
Figure 7-11: Format volume.
7. Click Finish. The new volume is created and appears in the Disk Management window.
Extending a Simple Volume
Say that you create a simple volume with a certain amount of space. You still have extra free space on the same disk. At a later time, you decide that the volume should have been larger. You do not have to remove your data from the volume and create a new one; you can simply extend the existing volume by grabbing some of the additional unallocated space on the disk. This feature allows you to quickly gain additional space without any harm to your data currently stored on the exist- ing volume. For example, say you have a 10-GB volume and 2 GB of free space available on the same disk. You can extend the 10-GB volume and include the 2 GB of free space to create a 12-GB volume. You can do all of this without damaging the data stored on the original 10-GB volume.
To extend a volume, right-click on the volume and click Extend Volume. The Extend Volume Wizard appears. The wizard basically works in the same way as the New Volume Wizard. Simply walk through the wizard steps and determine the amount of space you want to add to the existing volume. The extended volume will appear as a new volume in the Disk Management console, but it is actually an extension of the existing volume.
Creating a Spanned Volume
Aside from the simple volume, Windows XP Professional also supports spanned volumes. A spanned volume combines areas of unallocated space on multiple disks into one logical volume. You can combine between 2 and 32 areas of unallocated space from different drives. For example, say that a computer has three hard drives.
On each drive there is about 500 MB of unallocated free space. A 500-MB volume is rather small and not very practical for everyday use. However, using the spanned volume option, you could combine all three 500-MB areas of unallocated space to create a 1.5-GB volume. You can then use the volume, as if the storage was located on a single disk. Essentially, this configuration gives you more flexibility and fewer volumes (and drive letters to keep up with), and makes good use of leftover space.
After the spanned volume has been created, you see it as any other volume in My Computer or Disk Management. It is important to note, however, that spanned volumes are storage solutions only — they do not provide any fault tolerance. If one disk in the spanned volume fails, all data on the spanned volume is lost. However, you can back up a spanned volume just as you would any other volume.
Like a simple volume, you can easily extend a spanned volume at any time by adding existing free space. However, you cannot remove a volume from a spanned volume without losing the entire volume, so keep this issue in mind as you plan your disk configuration.
To create a spanned volume, follow these steps:
1. In the Disk Management console, right-click one of the areas of unallo- cated disk space on one of the disks and click New Volume.
2. The New Volume Wizard appears. Click Next to continue.
3. In the Select Volume Type window, shown in Figure 7-12, click the Spanned option, and then click Next.
Figure 7-12: Create a spanned volume.
4. In the Select Disks window, the current disk appears in the selected dialog box. Choose the free space on the desired disk(s) that appears on the Available window and click the Add button. Repeat the process until all unallocated areas that you want to use appear in the Selected box. Click Next.
5. In the Assign Drive Letter or Path window, choose a drive letter or mount the drive to an empty NTFS folder. You can also choose not to assign a drive letter or path at this time. Click Next.
6. In the Format Volume window, choose whether or not to format the vol- ume at this time and whether or not to perform a quick format and enable file and folder compression. Click Next.
7. Click Finish. The volume is created and now appears in the Disk Management console.
Creating Striped Volumes
Striped volumes are similar to spanned volumes in that they combine areas of free disk space (between 2 and 32 areas of unallocated space on different drives) to cre- ate one logical volume. However, the big difference is that striped volumes write
data across the disks instead of filling one portion of free space first, then the next portion, and so on. You are likely to see faster read and write performance than you will with a simple spanned volume. Like a spanned volume, you can create a striped volume by right-clicking one of the areas of unallocated space and clicking Create Volume. In the Create New Volume Wizard, choose to create a striped volume, and follow the same steps that appeared in the previous section.
Another important point concerning striped volumes is that the areas of unallo- cated free space must be the same size. For example, say that you want to use 500- MB, 800-MB, and 900-MB areas of unallocated disk space to create a striped set.
Since the areas have to be the same size, Disk Management will configure 500 MB from each disk, which means that you will still have some unallocated space left over. This configuration enables data to be written evenly across the disks.
Finally, keep in mind that striped volumes are storage solutions designed to pro- vide better performance. They do not, however, provide any fault tolerance. If one disk in the stripe fails, all of your data stored on the stripe will be lost. So, make sure you have an effective backup plan.
See Chapter 17 to learn more about backing up your data.
Using Hard Disk Properties
As with most elements of the Windows XP operating system, hard disks also contain properties pages that you can access from My Computer by simply right-clicking on the disk and clicking Properties. The properties pages give you a few important feature tabs that you should keep in mind as you manage hard disks on Windows XP, including the following:
◆ General
◆ Tools
◆ Hardware
◆ Sharing
◆ Quota
◆ Security
The following sections review these tabs in greater detail.
General Tab
The General tab, shown in Figure 7-13, gives you a quick way to view information about the disk, such as disk type, file system, used space, and free space. You can also launch the Disk Cleanup Wizard here, which inspects the drive for items that can possibly be deleted to free up space on the disk. Notice at the bottom of the window that you can compress the entire disk to conserve space, and you can index the drive so that searches work better and faster. These features have no negative effect on your data.
Where is the fault tolerance?
As you have been working with the Add Volume Wizard, you may have noticed references to some additional volume solutions that are fault tolerant. In reality, Windows XP Professional does not support any kind of disk fault tolerance, unlike Windows 2000/.NET Server. The references refer to Microsoft’s overall disk management solutions, even though the fault tolerant options are not available on Windows XP Professional or even Windows 2000 Professional, for that matter.
As an FYI, the two types of fault tolerance available on Microsoft server software are Disk Mirroring and RAID 5. Disk mirroring, which is supported on dynamic disks in Windows 2000 Server (also called RAID 1), requires two physical disks. When a disk mirror is configured, one disk volume maintains an exact copy of the first disk. In the event that one of the disks fails, you always have a redundant copy. The good feature of disk mirroring is that you have a redundant disk copy that can be easily used in the event that a single disk failure occurs. The bad news about disk mirroring is the megabyte cost. Because you are maintaining an exact copy of a volume, everything you save requires twice as much storage space as it normally would. Still, for critical servers that must be up and running quickly, disk mirroring is a great choice.
The second type of fault tolerance supported under Windows 2000/.NET Server is RAID 5 volumes. RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, and it is a standard that uses three or more dynamic disks to store data. Using a parity bit, which is a mathematical formula, data is written across the disks in stripe fashion. Should a single disk fail, the data can be regenerated from the remaining disks. You can use up to 32 physical drives for a RAID 5 volume, but RAID 5 volumes cannot hold the system or boot partition.
Figure 7-13: General tab.
Tools Tab
The Tools tab, shown in Figure 7-14, gives you three different tools that you can use to administer and manage the physical disk. The first tool is the Error-checking tool, formerly called ScanDisk. Error-checking inspects the disk for file system problems and disk surface problems. When you choose to use the Error-checking tool, you have the option to fix file system errors and scan for and fix bad disk sec- tors. This tool can be very helpful if you are experiencing disk problems, but it does need exclusive access to the disk, which may require you to reboot before it can run.
Figure 7-14: Tools tab.
The next tool is the disk defragmenter. The disk defragmenter is able to correct fragmentation in the file system, which occurs over time, and files are saved, changed, and moved.
Because disk defragmentation is a performance issue, this tool is examined in more detail in Chapter 18.
The final tool is the Backup utility, which can also be accessed from the Computer Management console. Using the backup utility, you can perform a number of differ- ent system, application, and data backups on your computer, and you can also restore data in the event that it is lost due to hardware failure or another mishap.
Refer to Chapter 17 for more information on the backup features provided in this utility.
Hardware Tab
The Hardware tab, shown in Figure 7-15, gives you a listing of all disk drives on the computer. You can select a disk and click Properties to access the Device Manager properties sheets for the disk, or you can click the Troubleshoot button if you want Windows XP to try and help you solve problems with the disk.
Figure 7-15: Hardware tab.
Sharing Tab
The Sharing tab enables you to share the entire disk and configure permission and caching settings allowed when the disk is shared.
You can learn all about resource sharing in Chapter 15.
Security and Quotas
If simple file sharing is not in use, you’ll see a Security tab, which is the standard Security tab you see on all shared resources. Using the Security tab, you can con- figure access to the disk and permissions for local and domain users.
You also see a Quota tab. Disk quotas allow network users to store data on your computer, as in the case of a file server. Using disk quotas, you can determine how much data they can store along with storage warnings.
See Chapter 15 to learn more about security, and see Chapter 16 to learn more about disk quotas.
Chapter 8
Working with Folders and Files
IN THIS CHAPTER
◆ Managing folders
◆ Configuring encryption and compression
◆ Working with offline files
FILES AND FOLDERS AREthe mainstay of Windows; after all, you spend most of your time working with various files and folders. Windows XP Professional provides a number of helpful tools and features that make files and folders easier to use, man- age, and customize to meet your needs. This chapter explores these features and options.
Working with Folders
In terms of managing files, folders are your best friends. As a storage location, a folder is simply a holding place where you can organize all kinds of data on your computer, from documents, photos, and spreadsheets, to application files. Windows XP gives you more configuration and customization options, along with some great management features that make folders more flexible and useful than they ever have been on Windows. In this section we take a look at what you can do with folders.
Configuring Folder Options
Folder Options, which is a Control Panel icon, is a centralized place where you can configure how all of your folders on Windows XP generally behave and look. You can access Folder Options from either the Control Panel or by clicking the Tools menu in any folder and clicking Folder Options. Either way, you arrive at the Folder Options properties dialog box. It is important to note here that no matter how you access Folder Options, the configuration changes you make in the Folder Options properties dialog box affect all folders on Windows XP. You cannot individually configure these settings for different folders. With that said, the following sections show you what options are available on Folder Options properties.
157