Partitions and Volumes

Hard Disks perform a very simple function – to store data and then reliably retrieve it on command. However, before any information can be stored on a hard disk it must be both partitioned and formatted with a file system. A hard disk can contain multiple partitions and file-systems. As you will learn later this can be extremely useful.

A partition is a persistent division of a physical hard drive into logical segments. Each partition appears to the user like a separate hard drive. Volume is the terminology used by post-Windows 2000 machines for partition. Volumes are much more flexible in their configuration than the more rigid partitions.

Partitioning a hard drive makes each segment behave like a separate disk. This is ideal for dual-booting different operating systems.

Basic Partitions

Primary Partitions

• There may be up to 4 Primary Partitions per physical disk.
• The Boot partition may only be located on a primary partition.

Extended Partitions

• Extended Partitions can use up any free space not used by the Primary Partitions.
• You may have up to 3 Primary partitions and one extended partition on any physical disk.
• Extended Partitions need to be further divided into Logical DOS drives.

Logical-DOS Partitions

• Logical Partitions are placed inside the extended partition.
• The number of Logical partitions you may have is only limited by the number of free drive letters.
• The boot partition cannot be placed on a logical partition.

Basic Partitions

The oldest Windows operating system is always installed first as the newer operating system normally writes a new boot record.

A Logical Drive can contain an operating system but never the System partition.

Different Partitions may contain a File Systems not used by Windows, so if an additional operating system is required it can also be installed on the non Windows partition.

Creating a Primary Partition

To create a Primary Partition from within Windows 2003/XP, the Disk Management Utility is used. To access Disk Management, click on Start.

Right-click on My Computer.

Select Manage.

Computer Management will appear. Click on Disk Management.

Disk Management will appear. From this screen you may view, create and delete partitions.  To create a new Primary partition on Disk 1 right-click on the unallocated space on Disk 1.

From the choices menu, select New Partition.

The New Partition Wizard will appear. Select Next to continue.

The Partition Type page will appear. Select the type of partition required. Primary Partition is selected here. Click Next to continue.

Select a size for the new partition, in this case we will chose 2048MB.

Click on Next to Continue.

A drive may be made to appear as a folder on an existing drive (This is called Mounting). The Default Drive is the next available drive letter, in this case D. Select Next to continue.

You can also choose a Volume Label, which can be used to identify the volume. In order for the partition to be used by the operating system it will have to be formatted with a file system. NTFS is the file-system of choice for a Windows Server 2003 system. Click Next to accept the default values.

The summary page will appear. To close the wizard and create the partition click Finish.

The new Primary partition is now displayed on Disk 1 and has been assigned the drive letter D:.

The new partition also appears in My Computer.

Creating an Extended Partition

To create a new Extended Partition the Disk Management Utility is used. To create a new Extended Partition on Disk 1, right-click on the Unallocated space on Disk 1.

Select New Partition.

The New Partition Wizard will appear. Select Next to continue.

The Partition Type page will appear. Select Extended Partition.

…and then hit Next.

Specify the size of the partition. The maximum amount of space available on this disk is 2039 MB. To accept the default click Next.

The summary page will appear. To close the wizard and create the partition click Finish.

The new Extended Partition is displayed on Disk 1. In order to use the partition, logical drives will have to be created inside it.

N.B. The extended partition does not appear in My Computer as an extended partition without any formatted logical drives cannot hold any data.

Creating a Logical Drive

To create a new Logical Drive within the Extended Partition, right click on the Extended Partition on Disk 1.

Select New Logical Drive.

The New Partition Wizard will appear. Select Next to continue.

Logical Drive is selected, click Next to continue.

To specify the Logical Drive size click in the “Partition size in MB” box and change the value.

1024MB will create a 1GB Logical Drive . Click Next to continue.

A drive may be made to appear as a folder on an existing drive (This is called Mounting). The Default Drive is the next available drive letter, in this case E.

Select Next to continue.

NTFS has been selected for the file system. Select “Volume label” in order to give the new partition a recognizable name.

The new Logical Drive has been named WebSite, this describes the data the Logical Drive may contain. Click Next to continue

The summary page will appear. To close the wizard and create the Logical Drive , click Finish.

The new Logical Drive is now displayed inside the Extended Partition on Disk 1 and has been labeled WebSite (E:).

Similarly, the new Logical Drive appears in My Computer and is ready for use.

Dynamic Volumes

Because of the limitations of basic partitions, dynamic volumes where introduced in Windows 2000 and continue to be supported in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

Dynamic volumes offer more flexibility than standard partitions. One of the main reasons for using dynamic volumes is to make use of volume sets (which are covered later).

Unfortunately pre-Windows 2000 computers cannot read or utilise dynamic volumes, furthermore you should not use dynamic volumes in a dual-boot environment even if all the operating systems are capable of supporting dynamic disks.

Dynamic Volumes are only supported on Windows 2000/XP/2003.

There is no limit to the number of volumes you may have on a disk.

Dynamic Volumes may be fault tolerant.

There are no Primary, Logical or Extended volumes.



Power Management and UPS

A computer’s Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) is software through which the operating system communicates with hardware devices. Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is the current standard for the way the BIOS works. Windows supports not only ACPI but also some BIOS versions based on older Advanced Power Management (APM) designs. Some machines aren’t capable of supporting the ACPI standard, and in some the APM feature actually conflicts. Consult the HCL and be prepared to disable APM in the BIOS.

Power consumption of a computer’s  devices or an entire system can be reduced using Power Options. This is done by choosing a power scheme, a collection of settings that manages the computer’s power usage. A user can create his or her own power schemes ,or use the schemes provided with Windows. Power consumption of a computer’s  devices or an entire system can be reduced using Power Options. This is done by choosing a power scheme, a collection of settings that manages the computer’s power usage. A user can create his or her own power schemes ,or use the schemes provided with Windows. Power Options are available to any Windows XP machine, but they are especially important  to preserve battery life for laptop users.

Start > Control Panel > reveals this window.

If Power Options are available on the machine, this icon will be seen. Click on it……and the Power Options applet is revealed.  The tabs available may vary from machine to machine, but these are typically seen on a desktop machine.

This is the more complex display typically seen on a laptop computer.

The current settings are for a light use desktop computer. Note the power-hungry monitor will shut down if it’s idle for 20 minutes, but the hard drives remain live for a quick resumption of working.  In this configuration the monitor and the hard drive shut down to preserve battery power.  These settings can be altered to give a more ruthless power saving.  Save these changes to make a  new Power Option.

Once given a distinctive name, the option becomes available for future use.  The drop down window reveals the list of ready-made power options.

A basic ready-made option can be selected and used as it is, or settings for the monitor and hard drive can be modified for each option.

This tab presents an unimpressive set of choices. The option to have the indicator on the taskbar is a useful one, however.

Hibernation will allow you to save your computer’s current state before powering down. This will allow you to reboot the computer quickly, returning you to your previous session.

UPS Devices

These come in all shapes and sizes but essentially do the same job. In the event of a mains failure they provide emergency battery power to keep a system alive until it can be safely shut down, or until the power is restored.

A UPS device should do its basic job merely by being plugged in. However, it can only be configured by starting the UPS service.

First, the device has to be identified to the system.

Once a device has been selected options for configuration become available…Choose one, and click finish.

While the basic UPS function works as soon as the unit is plugged in, the configurable settings only work when the UPS Service is started. Unfortunately, no clue appears on screen as to whether the service is running or not. Delve into Administrative tools for this…

This list of services is accessed through Computer Management > Services.  The service needs to be started manually. (Right-clicking brings up the required menu.)

Hardware in Windows XP/2003

Hardware Support; Windows XP/2003 includes support for numerous devices, including DVD, multiple monitors, cameras and wireless communication.

Plug and Play (PnP); Plug and Play is a standard that allows hardware to configure itself, with the least amount of user-intervention.

Universal Serial Bus (USB); Allows you to connect devices to your computer without restarting.  USB1 runs at 1 to 12Mb/sec, USB2 at 480Mb/sec and both support Plug and Play.

Power Management; Supports APM (Advanced Power Management).  Supports ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface)

Interrupt Requests (IRQ)

Devices work by interrupting the processor. Once a device has the processor’s attention it can send or retrieve data or carry out a function.  The interruption of the processor’s run time is called an Interrupt Request (IRQ). Each device has an IRQ so the processor knows which device is asking for its time.

Interrupt Requests (IRQ) Conflicts

Here, both the Printer and the Network Card are using the same IRQ number. This has confused the processor, so it doesn’t know which device to service.

Input/Output (I/O) addresses

Sometimes devices CAN share IRQ numbers. Consider this case of two COM ports.  Every device on the computer has a unique address, called an I/O address. This address acts like a mailbox number that the processor uses to communicate with the device.  While here, both COM ports share an IRQ number but they have different I/O numbers. All I/O numbers must be unique and cannot be shared.

Direct Memory Access

Using DMA, a device can directly transfer data to the RAM without using the processor, thus freeing up the processor for other tasks.  . If two devices tried to use the same DMA channel, this would cause a hardware conflict.

Multiple Displays

Multiple Display Support. Windows XP/2003 adds support for up to nine display adapters.  Any video adapters used for multiple displays must either be PCI or AGP cards.  All video adapters must support multiple displays including any on-board cards.

On-board Video Adapters. If the the on-board video card is to be used as well as a separate video adapter, then install Windows XP/2003 before installing the new device.  Windows setup will disable any on-board video card if a separate video-adapter is located.  In some systems the BIOS will disable the on-board card if another adapter is found, there may be no way to overcome this.

Configuration. One video adapter must be set as the primary. This adapter cannot be switched off as the other adapters will use it as a marking point when extending the desktop.

Device Manager

Hardware is administered through the Device Manager utility, which is the user’s main administrative interface with a machine’s hardware.

It can be used to:

• Check the configuration of hardware devices
• Install or update drivers
• Remove or disable hardware

This utility can be accessed from Start > Settings > Control Panel >  System > Hardware tab > Device Manager.

Alternatively, right-click on My Computer > Properties > Hardware tab > Device Manager.

A device can be uninstalled from this window. When the device is selected, the window changes subtly.

Note this icon. Hardware changes can be detected in the device by clicking this.

This feature is available from the Action menu or from right-clicking on an item. If the item is expanded, more operations are available:

Note these icons. Hardware devices can be disabled or deleted from here.  Alternatively, right-click on the highlighted device, or click on the Action button.  You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. Domain wide policies must also permit this!

An Exclamation Mark indicates a device has a problem. Generally this will be a driver issue.

A red cross indicates that the device has been disabled.

To check the properties of a hardware item, double click on the icon, or right click and select Properties.

The message that a device is working properly does not always means it’s doing what is required of it.  Devices can be enabled or disabled as required dependent upon the hardware profile required.

The number and type of tabs varies according to the particular Hardware Device selected.  The Driver tab allows you to configure drivers for the device. A driver is a software interface that allows the operating system to use the hardware.

Common to all devices is the Resources Tab. This lists the computer resources used by the particular device to interact with the processor  and the computer memory.  Any conflict reported here implies that changes have to be made to the IRQ or I/O resources allocated to this device.