Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage
Contents
1. Figure 3 3 The Windows XP fsutil exe command provides file system information including sector size When you convert a Basic disk to a Dynamic disk any existing partitions on the Basic disk become simple volumes on the Dynamic disk Any existing striped volumes or spanned volumes become dynamic striped volumes or dynamic spanned volumes Reverting Dynamic Disks to Basic Disks To revert from a Dynamic disk back to a Basic disk you must remove all vol umes from the Dynamic disk first After you change a Dynamic disk back to a Basic disk you can create only partitions and logical drives on that disk Converting to a Dynamic disk is effectively a one way trip To convert from a Dynamic disk back to a Basic disk you must delete all dynamic volumes This is a considerable downside If you find yourself needing to do it however first back up your data convert the disk to Basic and then restore your data To convert a Dynamic disk to a Basic disk perform the following steps 1 Open Disk Management 2 Right click the Dynamic disk you want to change back to a Basic disk and then click Convert to Basic Disk Moving Disks to a Different Computer When you relocate a Dynamic disk from one computer to another you are moving the disk from one disk group to another Initially the disk is per ceived as foreign when it is connected Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage 103 When you connect a foreign Dynami2. 1 You are a desktop support technician and you support computers run ning Windows XP in a Windows Server 2003 domain Domain policy explicitly prohibits using Windows Explorer burn CDs However Mary Ann is able to burn a CD What is the most likely reason Q A Mary Ann is using a third party application to create or modify CDs using a CD writer Q B Mary Ann is using Internet Explorer to create a CD Q C Mary Ann is a member of the Power Users group Q D The policy only applies to Windows Server operating systems Answer A is correct The group policy value User Configuration Administrative Templates Windows Components Windows Explorer Remove CD Burning Features prevents users from being able to use the Windows Explorer CD burning features It does not prevent users from using third party applications to create or modify CDs using a CD writer Answer B is incorrect because Internet Explorer with the policy enabled explicitly prevents copying information to a CD Answer C is incorrect because being a member of the Power Users group does not eliminate the effect of the policy Answer D is incorrect because the policy applies to Windows Server and Windows XP operating systems 2 You are a desktop support technician for a large company and you sup port computers running Windows XP A user Joshua wants to convert one of the hard drives connected to his Windows XP Professional desktop computer from a Basic disk to a Dynamic disk
3. In the Disk Management console he right clicks the physical disk designated as Disk 1 but the option to Convert to Dynamic Disk is unavailable Why would the option to convert the drive to a Dynamic disk be dis abled Q lt A There are already drive volumes with data stored on that physical disk B The drive is an external drive connected via USB or IEEE 1394 FireWire bus connections Q C The drive is an external Fibre Channel device Q D The drive has a sector size of 512 bytes Answer B is correct Hard disks connected via USB or FireWire EEE 1394 buses are not supported for Dynamic disks by default Answer A is incorrect because you are allowed to convert disks with existing drive volumes and data to Dynamic disks you cannot convert back to a Basic disk without deleting all existing volumes and therefore the data on those volumes Answer C is incorrect because Dynamic disks do sup port Fibre Channel drives Answer D is incorrect because Dynamic disks require drives with 512 or fewer bytes per sector Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage 129 3 You are a desktop support technician A user Toby wants to convert physical hard disk 2 on his Windows XP Professional desktop comput er from a Basic disk to a Dynamic disk using only the command line Is a command line tool available to accomplish this task If so what is the name of this utility and does it differ from the Disk Management console Q lt A
4. Turn the source computer off remove the physical disks and then install the physical disks on the target computer Restart the target computer Open Disk Management Click Action and then click Rescan Disks The disk that you move is designated Dynamic Foreign instead of Dynamic Right click the disk and click Import Foreign Disks The Foreign Disk Volumes dialog box appears indicating the size condition and type of the volume on the imported drive Click OK to add the disks Be sure to move all disks that are part of a volume set or a stripe set If you move only some of the disks that are members of a volume set or stripe set you render the set unusable You might even damage the set and lose the data stored on the set if you do not move all the set s disks 104 Chapter 3 Reactivating Missing or Offline Disks With LDM every disk knows about every other disk in your system When a disk can t be located it does not disappear from Disk Management It is simply designated missing as shown in Figure 3 4 Ppisk 2 OO E Dynamic New Volume G 4 00 GB 1 50 GB NTFS 512 MB 511 MB 1 50 GB Online Healthy Failed Failed Unallocated Missing a _ ee ic 4 00 GB 2 00 GB 1 00 GB 512 MB 511 MB Offline Failed Failed Failed Failed Figure 3 4 A drive designated as missing A Dynamic disk might be labeled missing when it is corrupted powered down or disconnected Only Dynamic disks can be
5. NTFS Gee Allocation unt size Default swa mas rey oo ade S Online Unallocated z To close this wizard click Finish cp RoM 0 DVD 1 56 GB Online Healthy BB Unallocated JE Primary partitio lt Back Finish l Cancel Figure 3 6 Dividing Basic disks into partitions using the New Partition Wizard In Windows XP you must delete all logical drives or other volumes in an extended partition before you can delete the extended partition Be careful If you choose to delete a partition or logical drive all the data on the deleted partition or logical drive is lost You cannot recover data stored on deleted partitions or logical drives You cannot delete the system parti tion boot partition or any partition that contains an active paging file Dynamic Volumes What were once called sets such as mirror sets and stripe sets under earlier operating systems are called volumes such as mirrored volumes and striped volumes in Windows XP Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage Dynamic volumes are the only type of volume you can create on Dynamic disks Dynamic disks eliminate the four partitions per disk limitation of Basic disks You can install Windows XP Professional onto a dynamic volume however the volume must already contain a partition table It must have been con verted from Basic to Dynamic under Windows XP or Windows 2000 You cannot install Windows XP onto dynamic volumes that were created u
6. The command line tool is called diskperf exe Only administrative users may use it B No command line tool equivalent to the Disk Management MMC exists Q cC The command line tool is called diskpart exe You must restart the computer for the conversion process to take effect Q D The command line tool is called convert exe You do not need to restart the computer for the conversion to take place unless you are converting the boot disk Answer C is correct Diskpart exe is the command line equivalent to Disk Management You must restart the computer for the conversion to take effect Answer A is incorrect because diskperf exe enables and disables hard disk performance counters on earlier versions of Windows it does nothing for converting Basic disks to Dynamic disks Answer B is incorrect because a command line utility with functionally equivalent to Disk Management does exist diskpart exe Answer D is incorrect because you use the convert exe command line tool to con vert a FAT or FAT32 volume to NTFS 4 You are a desktop support technician A user complains that he is run ning low on available disk space for critical database records he is importing into his sales database The data resides in a partition on a Basic disk on a computer running Windows XP If you suggest con verting to a Dynamic disk what types of storage solutions would the conversion provide Select all correct answers Spanned volumes Extended v
7. XP Q C The CD is corrupt and unreadable D It s a faulty driver Use driver rollback to replace the CD ROM driver Answer A is correct If the policy User configuration Administrative Templates Windows Components Windows Installer Prevent Removable Media Source for Any Install is enabled when a user tries to install a program from removable media the process fails If you disable the setting or do not configure it users can install from removable media Answer B is incorrect Windows XP supports CD based software installation by default Answer C is incorrect the CD is readable in other computers and can be used to copy files Answer D is incorrect There is no evi dence of a driver problem 134 Chapter 3 Need to Know More o Wallace Rick Microsoft Windows XP Professional Academic Learning Series Redmond Washington Microsoft Press 2001 Balter Dan MCSE Exam Cram 2 Windows XP Professional Indianapolis Indiana Que Certification 2002 Bott Ed and Carl Siechert Microsoft Windows XP Inside Out Deluxe Edition Redmond Washington Microsoft Learning 2002 Simmons Curt and James Causey Microsoft Windows XP Networking Inside Out Redmond Washington Microsoft Learning 2002 Stanek William R Microsoft Windows XP Professional Administrator s Pocket Consultant Redmond Washington Microsoft Press 2003 Search the Microsoft Product Support Services Knowledge Base on the Internet http support
8. You can install Windows XP onto a dynamic volume if gt The volume was upgraded from Basic to Dynamic by Windows 2000 gt The volume is one on which you ve run diskpart retain to add an entry to the partition table gt The volume is a simple volume that is the boot or system volume Extending a Volume on a Dynamic Disk After you convert a Basic disk to Dynamic you can extend dynamic volumes that you create In fact you can extend volumes and make changes to disk configuration in most cases without rebooting your computer If you want to take advantage of these features in Windows XP you must change or upgrade a disk from Basic to Dynamic status as covered earlier in this chapter Therefore if you want to create more than four volumes per disk or want to extend stripe or span volumes onto one or more Dynamic disks and your computer runs only Windows XP use Dynamic disks Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage 113 Upgrading from Windows NT 4 with Basic Disks Windows XP Professional does not support volume sets or stripe sets on a Basic disk If you need to upgrade a computer running Windows NT 4 that has hard drives already configured as volume sets or stripe sets you must first back up all the data stored on each volume set or stripe set To migrate data on volume sets or stripe sets from Windows NT 4 to Windows XP Professional perform the following steps 1 Under Windows NT 4 back up the data D
9. another operating system contact the drive manufacturer The desktop support technician needs a few tricks up his or her sleeve to test the CD further Here are a few sleights of hand gt Turn off all other programs Software might be interfering with reading the disc This problem can occur with anticrash software antivirus Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage 125 software or firewall software running in the background Starting the computer without unnecessary software might enable you to read from the disk To eliminate interfering programs do a clean boot of XP and quit any remaining programs 1 Close all programs that are running 2 Press Ctrl Alt Del In the Windows Security dialog box click Task Manager 3 In Windows Task Manager click Applications 4 No programs should appear under the Task list If any programs appear click the program name and then click End Task Again attempt to read from or write to the media If a user installed the Windows XP upgrade over Windows 95 98 or Me and the DVD ROM stopped working after the upgrade it might be that the drive is being treated as DMA direct memory access Switch the CD ROM drive or DVD drive to DMA mode from Programmed Input Output PIO as shown in Figure 3 16 Primary IDE Channel Properties General Advanced Settings Driver Resources Device 0 Device Type Transfer Mode DMA if available x PID Oni Cur
10. the center outward gt Clean the disc by using a water dampened cloth or a commercial CD cleaning solution or DVD cleaning solution Dry the disc thoroughly before you put it into the drive gt If your computer has multiple CD ROM drives CD R drives CD RW drives or DVD drives test the disc in another drive For DVDs make sure that the drive has a DVD logo If the disc works in another drive the original drive might be faulty gt If the disc appears clean yet does not work in another drive it is proba bly damaged and must be replaced Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage 123 gt You can clean the disc drive by using a CD ROM drive cleaning disc or DVD drive cleaning disc If users are experiencing problems with a CD ROM drive in Windows XP you can also consider the following actions Verify that the hardware is compatible with Windows XP by making sure that the CD ROM drive is listed on the Windows hardware compatibility list HCL gt For a SCSI CD ROM drive make sure that the SCSI controller is listed on the Windows HCL gt If the CD ROM drive or SCSI controller is not listed on the Windows HCL contact the device manufacturer obtain a Windows compatible device driver or consider replacing the device You should also verify that the CD ROM drive is installed according to the manufacturer s specifications Don t forget to open the case and check master slave cable select jumpering on the drive a
11. which is stored on the first sector of the hard drive The configura tion information consists of the disk s partition information Basic disks support spanned volumes volume sets striped volumes stripe sets mirrored volumes mirror sets and Redundant Array of Independent Disks RAID Level 5 volumes stripe sets with parity that were created and named under Windows NT 4 Mirrored and RAID 5 volumes are fault tolerant volumes designed to with stand single disk failures They are only available under the Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003 family of server operating systems Windows XP does not support these types of volumes on either Basic or Dynamic disks Dynamic Disks A Windows XP Dynamic disk is a physical disk that does not use conven tional partitions or logical drives A Dynamic disk is a single partition that can be divided into separate volumes You can even resize a volume on the fly without a reboot 98 Chapter 3 Dynamic disks are combined into collective disk groups which helps to organize them All Dynamic disks in a computer are members of the same disk group Each disk in a disk group stores replicas of the group s configu ration data in a region known as the Logical Disk Manager LDM metada ta partition This configuration data is stored in a 1MB region at the end of each Dynamic disk and is the reason you must have at least IMB of empty disk space for the LDM to convert a dis
12. Hardware Troubleshooter as part of the Help and Support Center or click Cancel to exit the Add Hardware Wizard You can also troubleshoot hardware problems using the Device Manager To access the Device Manager right click the My Computer icon from the Start menu and select Properties Click the Hardware tab and then click the Device Manager button Expand the hardware category that you need to troubleshoot and right click the device that you want to inquire about Select Properties from the context menu to display the properties window for that device as shown in Figure 3 10 All the pertinent information about the device is available from this window including its device status as deter mined by the operating system VMware Virtual IDE Hard Drive Properties General Policies Volumes Driver lt 3 VMware Virtual IDE Hard Drive Device type Disk drives Manufacturer Standard disk drives Location Location 1 1 Device status This device is disabled Code 22 Click Enable Device to enable this device Enable Device Device usage Do not use this device disable Figure 3 10 The properties sheet for a hard disk that shows its device usage as disabled in Device Manager Deteriorating performance is sometimes a precusor to hardware failure You can monitor disk performance with the Performance console Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage The Windows
13. Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage Terms you ll need to understand Basic versus Dynamic disks Partitions volumes and logical drives Simple spanned and striped volumes The diskpart exe utility NT File System NTFS volumes The convert exe utility Troubleshooting disk drives Troubleshooting removable storage Disk defragmentation QSNNNNNNNS Techniques you ll need to master Using the Disk Management console Monitoring and troubleshooting disks using the Performance console Using the Disk Defragmenter and Disk Cleanup Wizard Selecting a file system for Windows XP Professional Using convert exe to convert a File Allocation Table FAT volume to NTFS Using diskpart exe to manage disk drives and volumes from the command line Creating simple spanned and striped volumes Converting from Basic to Dynamic disks and back again Troubleshooting disk drives CD ROM and Universal Serial Bus USB based storage QSNNNNNNSN SN 96 Chapter 3 For a desktop support technician the number of distress calls from wayward users who have lost their files can be daunting However the storage options supported in Windows XP combine a lot of the old and a bit of the new in terms of things Windows XP can do Disk storage is more than about finding lost files In this chapter we cover how to support and troubleshoot hard disks and explore available options under Windows XP for creating partitions formatting drive volumes an
14. WINDOWS System32 cmd exe 5 x C gt DiskPart icrosoft DiskPart version 1 0 opyright C 1999 2881 Microsoft Corporation n computer UMXP DISKPART gt help Microsoft DiskPart version 1 8 DD Add a mirror to a simple volume CTIVE Activates the current basic partition SSIGN Assign a drive letter or mount point to the selected volume Break a mirror set clear the configuration information or all information off the isk Converts between different disk formats Greate a volune or partition Delete an objec Provide detas about an object Exit DiskPart Extend a volume Prints a list of coarse Imports a disk Prints out a list OF object Se Online a disk that is currently marked as offline Does nothing Used to comment scripts Remove a drive letter or mount point assignment Rescan the computer looking for disks and volumes Place a retainer partition under a simple volume Move the focus to an object DISKPART gt select disk 1 Disk 1 is now the selected disk DISKPART gt convert dynamic DiskPart successfully converted the selected disk to dynamic format DISKPART gt exit eaving DiskPart Eh Figure 3 1 The DiskPart utility which enables you to extend partitions and convert Basic disks to Dynamic disks Basic disks store their configuration information in the master boot record MBR
15. XP performance monitoring tool shown in Figure 3 11 con sists of two parts System Monitor and Performance Logs and Alerts The MMC snap in is simply named Performance With System Monitor you can col lect and view real time data about disk performance and activity in graph histogram or report form Performance Logs and Alerts enables you to con figure logs to record performance data and to set system alerts to notify you when a specified counter s value is above or below a defined threshold Last 70 387 Average 70 387 Minimum 70 387 Maximum Duration 70 387 1 40 Color _ Scale mes 100 000 1 000 mums 1 000 wes 1 000 ees 1 000 Counter Instance Avg Disk Queue Length _Total Disk Reads sec Disk Writes sec o Free Space Free Space ac oc C E Parent Object PhysicalDisk PhysicalDisk PhysicalDisk LogicalDisk LogicalDisk Computer EXAMCRAM EXAMCRAM EXAMCRAM EXAMCRAM EXAMCRAM Processor Time otal Processor mes 1 000 EXAMCRAM Figure 3 11 The Windows XP System Monitor To open Performance perform the following steps 1 Click Start Control Panel 2 In the Control Panel double click Administrative Tools and then dou ble click Performance You use System Monitor within Performance to monitor disk activity For measuring disk performance Windows XP maps physical drives to log ical drives by applying the same instance name For
16. are proper ties shown in Figure 3 13 Following is a list of other troubleshooting solutions 1 Don t interrupt the flow of data to the CD recorder 2 When creating a CD the CD recorder must receive a constant flow of data from the hard disk If the flow of data is interrupted the CD con tinues to spin but the writing laser does not have any information to copy onto the disc When this happens the writing process stops and users end up with a useless CD To maintain a constant flow of data heed these guidelines 120 Chapter 3 gt Record at a lower write speed gt Close any other programs that are running gt Disable any screen savers that might begin suddenly during writing 3 Don t run out of available disk space for the CD recording process gt When creating a CD Windows uses available free space on the hard disk to store temporary files gt To free up disk space run the Disk Defragmenter tool run the Disk Cleanup Wizard delete unneeded data files and empty the Recycle Bin gt If you have more than one partition or disk drive select one for the temporary file storage area that has sufficient disk space 4 Ensure that the CD and the CD recorder are clean and dust free 5 If the CDs from one manufacturer keep failing try a different brand Configuring and Troubleshooting Removable Storage Pen drives thumbnail drives flash drives and memory cards are all data storage destinations Window
17. c disk you need to rescan all drives and then import the foreign disk This procedure updates the disk s metadatabase Importing a disk merges the disk s information with the LDM database on the host computer Along with disk configuration information the LDM database stores drive letter assignments Imported drives keep their original drive letters unless the letters are used by the new host system If a driver letter is already in use the system assigns the next available drive letter To eliminate conflicts you can remove the drive letters from the volumes before moving the disk Because volumes can span multiple disks when you move multidisk volumes always move all the disks that compose the volume Don t move a disk that contains system or boot volumes to another comput er unless you need to recover data You might also encounter problems if you attempt to move the Dynamic disk back to its original computer However you can successfully move Basic disks that have system or boot volumes in this manner because they don t contain a dynamic LDM database You can use the diskpart exe command line tool or Disk Management to import disks To relocate disks to another computer perform the following steps 1 First before you disconnect the disks look in Disk Management and make sure the status of the volumes on the disks is healthy If the sta tus is not healthy repair the volumes before you move the disks
18. correct there is no program named format exe Answer B is incorrect Restricted Groups is designed to control membership in local groups on computers running Windows XP Removing Layla s name from the Administrators group does not elevate his privileges more than likely it reduces them Answer C is incorrect adding Layla s name to the local Administrators group will possibly enable him to use the format option provided that the policy in the local machine is configured to allow administrators to format removable media However it is not advisable to add users to the local administrators group to provide them with specific privileges it is more secure to elevate their permissions in a more specific way 10 You are a desktop support technician When Bob attempts to install a software program from CD and is unable to do so a message appears that says the feature cannot be found The CD is visible in Explorer He can copy files from the CD to the hard drive Bob tries to install the program on another computer and when he double clicks the program setup exe the program proceeds successfully Bob s original computer has sufficient disk space on which to install the software What is a possible reason for Bob s inability to install the software on his computer running Windows XP Q A A policy that prevents installation from removable media is in place on Bob s computer Q B This function is not supported by Windows
19. create O Spanned O Striped Description A simple volume is made up of free space on a single dynamic disk Create a simple volume if you have enough free disk space for your volume on one disk You can extend a simple volume by adding free space from the same disk or another disk lt Back Next gt Cancel Figure 3 8 Using the New Volume Wizard for Dynamic disks to create different types of dynamic volumes Spanned Volumes A spanned volume consists of disk space from more than one physical disk You can add more space to a spanned volume by extending it at any time To create a spanned volume perform the following steps 1 Open Disk Management 2 Right click the unallocated space on one of the Dynamic disks where you want to create the spanned volume and then click New Volume 3 Using the New Volume Wizard click Next click Spanned and then follow the instructions on your screen Here are guidelines for spanned volumes gt You can create spanned volumes on Dynamic disks only gt You need at least two Dynamic disks to create a spanned volume gt You can extend a spanned volume onto a maximum of 32 Dynamic disks gt Spanned volumes cannot be striped gt Spanned volumes are not fault tolerant Extending Simple or Spanned Volumes To extend a simple or spanned volume perform the following steps 110 Chapter 3 1 Open Disk Management 2 Right click the simple or spanned volume you wan
20. d F and striped H dynamic volumes displayed in Disk Management By default Disk Management uses solid colors to represent the five different types of dynamic volumes Table 3 2 lists the colors Disk Management uses by default 107 108 Chapter 3 Table 3 2 Colors Used by Disk Management to Represent Drives Object Color Unallocated Black Extended partition Green Logical drive Blue Mirrored volume Brick Server only Primary partition Dark blue Striped volume Cadet blue RAID 5 volume Cyan server only Free space Light green Simple volume Olive Spanned volume Purple You must be an administrator or a member of the Administrators group to create modify or delete dynamic volumes Simple Volumes A simple volume consists of disk space on a single physical disk It can consist of a single area on a disk or multiple areas on the same disk that are linked together To create a simple volume perform the following steps 1 Open Disk Management 2 Right click the unallocated space on the Dynamic disk where you want to create the simple volume and then click New Volume 3 Using the New Volume Wizard shown in Figure 3 8 click Next click Simple and then provide the volume s size and formatting details Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage 109 New Volume Wizard Select Volume Type There are five types of volumes simple spanned striped mirrored and RAID 5 Select the volume you want to
21. d managing disk administration Disk Storage Administration If you are familiar with managing and troubleshooting hard disks and vol umes under Windows 2000 you ll be comfortable working with disk storage administration in Windows XP For desktop support technicians who are familiar with Windows NT 4 Windows XP Professional introduces some new concepts such as Basic and Dynamic disk storage Basic Disks A Windows XP Basic disk similar to the disk configuration under earlier versions of Windows is a physical disk with primary and extended partitions As long as you use the FAT file system Windows XP Professional and Home editions Windows 2000 Windows NT Windows 9x and MS DOS operat ing systems all can access Basic disks On a Basic disk you can create up to three primary partitions and one extended partition four primary partitions or one extended partition with logical drives Windows XP supports FAT primary partitions up to 4GB in size Windows 9x Me and MS DOS support only 2GB primary partitions If you discover you ve created a partition that s too small you cannot extend it using the Disk Management Microsoft Management Console However if you use the DiskPart exe command line utility shown in Figure 3 1 you can extend a Basic disk partition to contiguous unallocated space The partition must use the NTFS format and cannot be the system or boot partition Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage ex C A
22. e volume use diskpart exe or the Disk Management console to delete the volume create a new volume format the volume as FAT32 and then restore the backed up data 132 Chapter 3 Answer D is correct Windows XP does not offer a conversion tool for converting an existing NTFS volume to FAT to FAT32 or to any other file system You must back up all the data on the volume create a new volume format it and restore the data Answer A is incorrect because the convert exe command does not support the conversion to the FAT or FAT32 file systems Answer B is incorrect because the con vert exe command line tool only supports a conversion to NTFS prepending a minus sign to the NTFS parameter is not supported Answer C is incorrect because the Disk Management console only sup ports reformatting an existing NTFS drive volume to convert it to the FAT or FAT32 file system 8 You are a desktop support technician A user complains that she cannot copy a 100MB folder onto a USB 2 0 pen drive that she has been issued for transferring files What is the most likely reason she is unable to store the files on the pen drive Q A You have a strict disk quota policy that uses default settings Q B Because you cannot limit the enforcement of a disk quota on remov able media the drive must be faulty Q C You have enabled the Apply Policy to removable media policy Q D She is logged on with local administrator privileges Answer C is co
23. elete the volumes Upgrade the operating system to Windows XP Professional 2 3 4 Convert the appropriate hard disks from Basic to Dynamic disks 5 Create the appropriate volumes 6 Restore the backed up data Diagnosing Hard Disk Problems As a desktop support technician when a disk or volume fails you want to know how to detect the failure and how to recover the data quickly The Disk Management snap in makes it easy to locate problems In the Status column of the list view you can view the status of a disk or volume The status also appears in the graphical view of each disk or volume as shown in Figure 3 9 hbpisk2 COo E Dynamic New Volume G 1 50 GB NTFS 512 MB 511 MB 1 50 GB Online Healthy Failed Failed Unallocated 2Missing OO arr nn Dynamic 4 00 GB 2 00 GB 1 00 GB S12 MB S11 MB Offline Failed Failed Failed Failed Figure 3 9 A failed drive affecting spanned and striped volumes but not a simple volume on a healthy drive Disk 3 is missing To diagnose disk and or volume problems perform the following steps 1 Open Add Hardware in the Control Panel Click Next Windows XP tries to detect new Plug and Play devices 114 Chapter 3 2 Click Yes I Have Already Connected the Hardware and then click Next 3 Choose the device you want to diagnose and fix and then click Next 4 The Add Hardware Wizard informs you of the device s current status Click Finish to invoke the
24. er select Properties click the Tools tab and click Defragment Now 2 Select which disks you want to defragment and any additional options you want to set 3 Click the Defragment button to start the defragmentation process Windows XP Professional ships with a command line version of the disk defragmenter defrag exe You can run this program within a batch file or inside of a Windows script which in turn can be scheduled to run automatically using the Scheduled Tasks folder On NTFS volumes Windows XP reserves a portion of the free space for a system file called the master file table MFT The MFT is where Windows stores all the information it needs to retrieve files from the volume Windows stores part of the MFT at the beginning of the volume Windows reserves the MFT for exclusive use so Disk Defragmenter cannot and does not move files to the beginning of volumes Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage 127 Disk Cleanup helps free up space on your hard drive by searching your drives and then showing you a list of temporary files Internet cache files and potentially unnecessary program files that you can safely delete You can instruct Disk Cleanup to delete none some or all of those files To use the Disk Cleanup Wizard perform the following steps 1 Click Start All Programs Accessories System Tools 2 Click the Disk Cleanup icon and follow the onscreen instructions 128 Chapter 3 Exam Prep Questions
25. es on the NTFS volume Windows Checking file system on C The type of the file system is NTFS Adi Windows will now s verifying files verification completed s verifying indexes stage 2 of 5 rification completed s verifying security descriptors stage 3 of 5 y descriptor verification completed lt is verifying file data stage 4 of 5 data verification completed CHKDSK is verifying free space stage 5 of 5 Free space verification is complete CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the master file table MFT bitmap in 1243 indexes in bad sectors in use by the system occupied by the log file available on disk Figure 3 12 Error checking process running on drive C upon a system restart This is a composite screen shot Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage Supporting CD and DVD Playback and Recording Devices With Windows XP Professional users can save information such as photos and software to a compact disc CD without installing third party software Because CD recordable CD R and CD rewritable CD RW drives have become standard parts of the desktop architecture desktop support techni cians need to understand their capabilities and limitations Writing Files and Folders to CD R and CD RW Media To copy files or folders to a CD follow these steps Insert a blank writable CD into the CD recorder You need a blank writable CD and a CD drive CD burner t
26. example if a computer contains a dynamic volume that consists of two physical hard disks the log ical drives might appear as Disk o c and Disk 1 C which denotes that drive C spans physical disks 0 and 1 For a PC that has three logical volumes on one physical disk the instance appears as 0 C D E Detecting and Repairing Disk Errors In the Windows 2000 operating systems the ScanDisk utility detected and fixed disk errors In Windows XP desktop support technicians can use the Error checking tool chkdsk exe to check for file system errors and bad sec tors on your hard disk To run the Error checking tool perform the follow ing steps 115 116 Chapter 3 1 Open My Computer and right click the local disk you want to check 2 Select Properties 3 Click the Tools tab 4 Under Error checking click Check Now 5 Under Check Disk Options select Automatically Fix System Errors Scan for and Attempt Recovery of Bad Sectors and click Start If the volume to be checked has files that are currently in use such as some of the operating system files you are asked whether you want to reschedule the disk checking for the next time you restart your computer If you say yes when you restart your computer Windows checks the disk as shown in Figure 3 12 If the volume being checked is NTFS Windows XP automatically logs all file transactions replaces bad clusters automatically and stores copies of key information for all fil
27. fits with much less system over head Using Partitions and Logical Drives on Basic Disks To extend a Basic partition the partition must be formatted as NTFS it must be adjacent to contiguous unallocated space on the same physical disk and it can be extended only onto unallocated space that resides on the same physical disk You can only extend a Basic partition with the diskpart exe utility as shown in Figure 3 5 and not through the Management Console G gt diskpart a opyright C 1999 2001 Microsoft Corporation n computer EXAMCRAML DISKPART gt list volume Copyriant DiskPart version 1 Volume iHt Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info Volume D DOMS2ENUDi CDFS DUD ROM 1593 MB Volume 1 C NIFS Partition 4087 MB Healthy System Volume 2 E New Volume NIFS Partition 204 MB Healthy DISKPART gt select volume e Volume 2 is the selected volume DISKPART gt extend size 1024 DiskPart successfully extended the volume DISKPART gt list volume Volume tit Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info Volume D DOMS2ENUD1 CDFS DUD ROM 1593 MB Volume 1 TFS Partition 4687 MB Healthy Systen Uolume 2 New Volume NTFS Partition 1224 MB Healthy DISKPART gt exit Leaving DiskPart cL Figure 3 5 Using the diskpart exe utility to extend partition E Creating or Deleting a Partition or Logical Drive To create or delete a partition or logical drive you can use
28. hat has the capability of writing CDs Open My Computer and then select the files and folders you want to write to the CD In the My Computer task pane under File and Folder Tasks click Copy This File Copy This Folder or Copy the Selected Items In the Copy Items dialog box click the CD recording drive and then click Copy In My Computer double click the CD recording drive Under CD Writing Tasks click Write These Files to the CD Standard CDs hold 650MB of information High density CDs hold at least 700MB of information You must have enough space on your hard drive to temporarily hold the files you want to copy to the CD or the operation will fail The local hard drive serves as Windows XP s temporary staging area for data being written to recordable or rewritable CD media When you are writing files to optimize your computer for optimal writing speed Microsoft recommends that you redirect the temporary files created by the write process to another local drive or partition as shown in Figure 3 13 When the process of copying is complete the last page of the CD Writing Wizard shown in Figure 3 14 enables you to create another CD like the one you just created 117 118 Chapter 3 CD Drive E Properties General AutoPlay Hardware Sharing Recording These settings determine how the Windows CD recording SP software writes files to this CD R drive Desktop CD recording Select this check box to
29. he subst exe command line utility to specify each folder as a unique drive letter Q B Use the Disk Management console to create mount points for each hard drive volume letter through empty folders on the same FAT or FAT32 volume Q C Use diskpart exe to create mount points for each hard drive volume let ter through empty folders on the same NTFS volume Q D Use diskperf exe to create mount points for each hard drive volume let ter through empty folders on the same NTFS volume Answer C is correct You can use either diskpart exe or the Disk Management MMC snap in to create mount points for a drive letter through empty NTFS folders Answer A is incorrect because the subst exe command associates a specific drive letter path with a differ ent drive letter root folder Answer B is incorrect because you can only create mount points on empty NTFS folders Answer D is incorrect because diskperf exe enables and disables hard disk performance coun ters on earlier versions of Windows 7 You are a desktop support technician What is the easiest way to con vert an NTFS drive volume configured as drive D to the FAT32 file system without losing any existing data Assume that the volume is not the system or boot volume Q A Use the command convert d fs fat32 Q B Use the command convert d fs ntfs Q C Use the Disk Management console to revert the volume back to FAT or FAT32 Q D Back up all the data stored on the NTFS driv
30. iles on the CD You cannot specify individual files Not all CDs are erasable a CD R disc is not erasable Many software programs like Roxio s Direct CD and Copy to Disk use the Universal Disk Format UDF which is a standard published by the Optical Storage Technology Association OSTA Windows XP reads UDF versions up to 2 01 using the udfs sys driver Windows XP writes data to CDs using the Joliet and International Organization for Standardization ISO 9660 CD File System CDFS for mats When Windows XP writes audio to CD it uses the Red Book format UDF is a successor to the ISO 9660 CDFS Therefore if you are using a CD RW disk you can erase files and append files to a disk that already has files if the disk was originally formatted using Windows XP However to modify existing CD RW disks formatted with UDES you need extra software Configuring CD R CD RW Device Settings You can limit a user s ability to burn CDs using Windows Explorer By configuring the group policy value user Configuration Administrative Templates Windows Components Windows Explorer Remove CD Burning Features you can prevent users from using the Windows Explorer CD burning features This setting does not prevent third party CD burners If you are trying to troubleshoot reading and writing problems you can stop the drive from automatically ejecting the CD and you can change the speed with which data is written to the drive Each of these are hardw
31. ined by Windows XP Professional you cannot multi boot Windows XP Professional with any other operating system if you have only one disk Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage To convert a Basic disk to a Dynamic disk using the Disk Management con sole perform the following steps 1 Open the Disk Management tool 2 Right click the Basic disk you want to change to a Dynamic disk and then click Convert to Dynamic Disk Because the conversion from Basic to Dynamic is per physical disk all vol umes on a physical disk must be either Basic or Dynamic When converting from a Basic to a Dynamic disk you do not need to restart your computer unless you are converting the system or boot partitions or if the partition contained the page file To change or convert a Basic disk to a Dynamic disk from the Windows XP command line perform these steps 1 Open a command prompt window type diskpart and press Enter 2 Type commands or help to view a list of available commands 3 Type select disk to select the first hard disk select disk 1 to select the second hard disk and so on and press Enter 4 Type convert dynamic and press Enter 5 Type exit to quit the diskpart exe tool and then restart the computer to have the new configuration take effect see Figure 3 1 You can use the DiskPart utility to create mount points for hard drives through empty folders on NTFS drives In other words rather than define a volume w
32. ion from Windows 98 Windows Me or Windows NT Workstation 4 0 the computer system defaults to Basic disk storage If you upgrade from Windows 2000 Professional or if you import a foreign disk from Windows 2000 Server or a later version you can configure one or more of the disk drives as Dynamic You can use Windows XP s Disk Management console an MMC snap in shown in Figure 3 2 to convert a Basic disk to a Dynamic disk To access Disk Management click Start All Programs Administrator Tools Computer Management Or simply right click the My Computer icon from the Start menu and click Manage You ll find Disk Management by expanding the Disk Management category You must be a member of the local Administrators group to make any changes to the computer s disk management configuration Before you upgrade disks close any programs that are running on those disks As mentioned earlier for the conversion to succeed any disks to be convert ed must contain at least 1MB of unallocated space Disk Management auto matically reserves this space when creating partitions or volumes on a disk but disks with partitions or volumes created by other operating systems might not have this space available This space can exist even if it is not vis ible in Disk Management Windows XP requires this minimal amount of disk space to store an LDM database which is maintained by the operating system that created it Because the LDM is mainta
33. ith a drive letter you can link it back to an empty folder on an NTFS formatted drive You also can use DiskPart to import foreign disks into computers running XP This technique is explained in the section Moving Disks to a Different Computer In addition to using diskpart exe you can manage FAT FAT32 and NTFS file systems with the fsutil exe command line utility Fsutil exe manages disk quotas reparses mount points and performs sev eral other advanced disk related tasks Type fsutil at a command prompt to view a list of supported commands see Figure 3 3 101 102 Chapter 3 ex C AWINDOWS System32 cmd exe Jofx C gt Ffsutil a Commands Supported behavior Control file system behavior dirty Manage volume dirty bit file File specific commands fsinfo File system information lhardlink Hardlink management bjectid Object ID management uota Quota management eparsepoint Reparse point management parse Sparse file control sn USN management olume Volume management Ox32bBd93chOd9G76F 3 1 x860880008007f F54a GxGag00800G00f fea GxG0G00800808F e79c axa stolata tetas tststslsts ts Bytes Per Cluster 4096 Bytes Per FileRecord Segment 1024 lusters Per FileRecord Segment ft Valid Data Length 6xegg9908800806c HA ft Start Len 6xeg99909808048808 ft2 Start Len 6xegg880800807F 54 ft Zone Start 6xagg9898808040808 ft Zone End Gxegn8g088088S fF feb gt zl
34. ition Volume and unallocated space Logical drive Simple volume Mirror set Mirrored volume server only Primary partition Simple volume Stripe set Striped volume Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage Table 3 1 Continued Basic Disks Dynamic Disks Stripe set with parity RAID 5 volume server only System and boot partitions System and boot volumes Volume set Spanned volumes You can convert a Basic disk to a Dynamic disk using the DiskPart com mand line utility mentioned earlier or the Disk Management MMC shown in Figure 3 2 Disk Management BEA File Action View Help e DESE Volume Layout Type File System Status Capacity Free Space Free Fault Tolerance B c Partition Basic NTFS Healthy 5S 3 99 GB 2 64 GB 66 No Boomszenuni 0 Partition Basic CDFS Healthy 1 56 GB OMB 0 No 2 pisk 0 LEE eee ee Basic c 7 3 99 GB 3 99 GB NTFS Online Healthy System Convert to Dynamic Disk Boisk1 Select one or more basic disks to convert to dynamic disks Basic Disks 4 00 GB 4 00 GB o5 Online Unallocated abeki pisk 2 O Disk 2 Basic 4 00 GB 4 00 GB Online Unallocated Qcp romo DVD DOMS2ENUD1 D 1 56 GB 1 56 GB CDFS Online Healthy H Unallocated lj Primary partition Figure 3 2 Converting a Basic disk to a Dynamic disk If you are upgrading from Windows 98 or Windows Me to Windows XP Professional do not make changes to
35. k from Basic to Dynamic Dynamic disks can contain an unlimited number of volumes you are not restricted to four volumes per disk as you are with Basic disks and those vol umes can be extended if they are formatted with NTFS To convert a volume from FAT to NTFS use the convert exe volume FS NTFS command where volume is the logical letter of the drive Locally regardless of the type of file system only computers running Windows XP Professional Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 recog nize Dynamic disks Windows XP Home Edition does not offer Dynamic disks Dynamic disks are not supported on portable computers Managing Basic and Dynamic Disks Basic and Dynamic disks are Windows XP s way of managing hard disk con figuration If you re migrating to Windows XP from Windows NT 4 the Dynamic disk concept might seem unfamiliar in the beginning but once you understand the differences working with Dynamic disks is not complicated You can format partitions with FAT16 FAT32 or NTFS on a Basic or a Dynamic disk FAT and NTFS are discussed later in this chapter From the Disk Management console you can only format a dynamic volume as NTFS You must use Windows XP Explorer to format a dynamic volume as FAT or FAT32 Table 3 1 compares the terms used with Basic and Dynamic disks Table 3 1 A Cross Reference of Terms Used with Basic and Dynamic Disks Basic Disks Dynamic Disks Active partition Active volume Extended part
36. l a CD ROM drive that uses a proprietary non SCSI interface check the following gt Make sure that the correct device driver is installed by running Windows XP Setup and selecting Add Remove SCSI Adapters on the Options menu gt Review the Windows XP read me file readme wri and the Windows XP catalog available online at http www microsoft com windows catalog Users might report that Windows does not recognize their CD ROM drives Start Windows Explorer and look for a drive letter assigned to the CD ROM drive If the CD ROM drive does have a drive letter try to view a folder by using the CD ROM drive Make sure that you insert a data CD into the CD ROM drive If AutoPlay is enabled on a drive there might a short delay of up to 10 sec onds before the CD or DVD is recognized and displayed in My Computer Try disabling AutoPlay on the drive If you can read a data CD but cannot play a music CD use one of the fol lowing strategies gt In Control Panel start Sounds and Audio Devices click the Hardware tab and then make sure that the CD DVD drive is listed along with Audio Codecs gt If these items are not listed use the Add Remove Hardware program in Control Panel to reinstall necessary drivers gt If the system is configured to dual boot to another operating system check whether the CD ROM drive functions in the other operating sys tem If the CD ROM drive does not function properly in MS DOS or in
37. lume is allocated evenly and across in stripes the disks of the striped volume Storing files in this manner increases the write read speed to and from your disks Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage 111 To create a striped volume perform the following steps 1 Open Disk Management 2 Right click unallocated space on one of the Dynamic disks where you want to create the striped volume and then click New Volume 3 Using the New Volume Wizard click Next click Striped and then fol low the instructions on your screen Here are the guidelines for striped volumes gt You need at least two physical Dynamic disks to create a striped volume gt You can create a striped volume onto a maximum of 32 disks gt Striped volumes are not fault tolerant and cannot be extended or mir rored Troubleshooting Issues on Basic and Dynamic Disks As a desktop support technician you configure Dynamic disks and dynamic volumes in specific circumstances you need to be aware when each is appro priate and be prepared to recover data should the disks or volumes fail If you upgrade a computer running Windows 2000 Professional that has hard drives configured as volume sets or stripe sets you must back up all the data stored on each volume set or stripe set first because Windows XP Professional does not support volume sets or stripe sets on a Basic disk gt Under Windows 2000 Professional volume sets and stripe sets are sup por
38. microsoft com You can also search Microsoft TechNet on the Internet http www microsoft com technet Find technical information using keywords from this chap ter such as FAT FAT32 NTFS Basic disk Dynamic disk drive partition drive volume simple volume spanned volume striped volume managing digital media and disk management
39. nd for the proper cabling If it is a SCSI CD ROM drive check the following gt Is the SCSI bus is terminated correctly On a SCSI bus the last SCSI device needs a special terminator gt Verify the CD ROM SCSI ID The SCSI ID of the CD ROM drive is normally set to SCSI ID 2 or higher Ensure that the CD ROM drive is not configured to use a SCSI ID already assigned to another device gt Verify that the SCSI ID of the SCSI controller is set to SCSI ID 7 gt Verify that no other adapters are configured with settings that conflict with the SCSI controller s settings gt Search the Windows XP Event Viewer for error messages related to the CD ROM drive or SCSI controller gt Open Device Manager to see whether it detects the SCSI controller and the CD ROM drive Does Device Manager indicate that the devices are working properly If users have installed an IDE CD ROM drive make sure they are using a device driver that is designed for the IDE controller to which the CD ROM drive is attached If the manufacturer does not provide a specific driver for the IDE controller install the IDE controller driver that comes with Windows XP This driver 124 Chapter 3 is compatible only with IDE CD ROM drives that are Advanced Technology Atachment Packet Interface ATAPI 1 2 compliant By contacting the CD ROM s manufacturer you should be able to verify the ATAPI compliance level of the CD ROM drive If you are trying to instal
40. nder ALERT Windows 2000 Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 from unallocated space hy gt Only computers running Windows XP Professional Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 can access dynamic volumes The five types of dynam ic volumes are simple spanned mirrored striped and RAID 5 Windows XP Professional supports only simple spanned and striped dynamic vol umes shown in Figure 3 7 Volume Layout Type l File System l Status Capacity Free Space Free l Fault Tolerance Overhead S c Partition Basic NTFS Healthy System 3 99GB 2 81 GB 70 No 0 New Volume E Simple Dynamic NTFS Healthy 250GB 2 49 GB 99 No 0 New Volume F Spanned Dynamic NTFS Healthy 1 50GB 1 49 GB 99 No 0 New Volume G Simple Dynamic NTFS Healthy 1 50GB 1 49GB 99 No 0 ENew Volume H Striped Dynamic NTFS Healthy 1021 M8 1013 MB 99 No 0 amp hbisk 0 a ic c 3 99 GB 3 99 GB NTFS Online Healthy System Boisk 1 eee SSS Dynamic New Volume E New Volume F New Volume E New Volume H 4 00 GB 2 00 GB NTFS 1 00 GB NTFS 512 MB NTFS 511 MB NTFS Online Healthy Healthy Healthy Healthy disk 2 TT SS Dynamic New Yolume G New Yolume F New Yolume H 4 00 GB 1 50 GB NTFS 512 MB NTFS 511 MB NTFS 1 50 GB Online Healthy Healthy Healthy Unallocated Scp rom 0 DVD D No Media BB Unallocated jE Primary partition I Simple volume JJ Spanned volume i Striped volume Figure 3 7 Simple E G spanne
41. olumes RAID 5 volumes Simple volumes Volume sets Striped volumes coococada Qm BOO w Mirrored volumes 130 Chapter 3 wal Answers A D and F are correct Spanned volumes enable you to store data sequentially over two or more physical disks but Windows XP displays the disks as one logical drive volume Simple volumes are the most fundamental dynamic volumes with each simple volume residing on only one physical disk Striped volumes are also supported under Windows XP enabling you to store data in stripes across two or more physical disks but Windows XP displays the disks as one logical drive volume Answer B is incorrect because there is no such volume as an extended volume on a Dynamic disk Answer C is incorrect because Windows XP Professional does not support the fault tolerant RAID 5 volume configuration Answer E is incorrect because volume sets were supported for Basic disks under Windows NT they are known as spanned volumes under Windows XP Answer G is incorrect because Windows XP Professional does not support the fault tolerant mirrored volume configuration You are a desktop support technician A user Hazel has a Windows XP Professional computer that has two physical hard drives installed Both disks have been converted to Dynamic disks The first disk disk 0 has a capacity of 20GB with a drive C system and boot volume of 2GB a drive D volume of 7GB and 11GB of unallocated free space The second di
42. reactivated not Basic disks Disks are labeled missing because other disks in the disk group share LDM information that expects the disk to be connected and functioning To reactivate a missing or offline disk perform the following steps 1 Open Disk Management 2 Right click the Offline disk whose status is missing and then click Reactivate Disk 3 The disk should be titled Online after the disk is reactivated Working with Basic Partitions Windows XP Basic disks support partitions and logical drives and recognize volumes created using Windows NT 4 or earlier operating systems Before Windows 2000 Basic disks supported all volume types basic vol umes volume sets stripe sets mirror sets and stripe sets with parity also known as RAID 5 sets Under Windows XP you can create Basic partitions only on Basic disks Because Windows XP Professional is considered a desktop client side net work operating system it does not support any type of fault tolerant vol umes even on Dynamic disks Only Microsoft server operating systems support fault tolerant features such as mirrored volumes and RAID 5 vol umes stripe sets with parity and those configurations can only reside on Dynamic disks Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage Keep in mind that these Windows fault tolerant configurations are operat ing system features Independent non OS RAID arrays such as Serial ATA RAID host adapters provide similar bene
43. record CDs by dragging files and folders to the CD R icon on your computer Enable CD recording on this drive Select a drive where Windows can store an image of the CD to be written The image file may use up to 1 GB of disk space Local Disk C W Select a write speed Higher speeds take less time but if they cause errors select a lower speed Fastest v F Automatically eject the CD after writing Figure 3 13 How to modify the location for temporary CD files 2 CD Writing Wizard Welcome to the CD Writing Wizard This wizard helps you write or record your files to a CD recording drive Type the name you want to give to this CD or just click Next to use the name below CD name zane New files being written to the CD will replace any files already on the CD if they have the same name Close the wizard after the files have been written Figure 3 14 The CD Writing Wizard copying files to a CD To create multiple CDs with the same files click Yes Write These Files to Another CD and insert another blank writable CD into the CD recording drive To erase files from a CD follow these steps 1 Double click the CD recording drive to display the content 2 Under CD Writing Tasks click Erase This CD RW 3 The CD Writing Wizard enables you to delete the content of the CD RW Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage 119 Erasing a CD RW deletes all the f
44. rent Transfer Morrie era Device 1 Device Type Auto D etection Transfer Mode DMA if available Current Transfer Mode Not Applicable Cancel Figure 3 16 Drive configuration changes mode options DMA and PIO PIO is a method of moving data between devices that sends data through the processor DMA is a newer alternative to PIO in which data from an attached device goes directly to memory bypassing the processor To switch between PIO to DMA mode follow these steps 126 Chapter 3 1 In Control Panel double click Administrative Tools and then click Computer Management N Click System Tools and then click Device Manager Click to expand IDE ATA ATAPI controllers Aa ow Click the specific controller for which you want to configure DMA PIO settings 5 Click the Advanced Settings tab 6 In the Transfer Mode box click either PIO Only or DMA if available The Disk Defragmenter Tool Disk Defragmenter rearranges files programs and unused space on your computer s hard disks allowing programs to run faster and files to open more quickly Putting the pieces of files and programs in a more contiguous arrangement on disk reduces the time the operating system needs to access them To run Disk Defragmenter perform the following steps 1 Click Start All Programs Accessories System Tools and then click Disk Defragmenter Alternatively you can right click a drive letter in My Comput
45. rrect In the group policy feature you can enable the computer policy Administrative Templates System Disk Quotas Apply Policy to Removable Media This policy extends disk quotas to include removable media Answer A is incorrect By default disk quota policies do not apply to removable media Answer B is incorrect You can apply disk quotas to removable media There is no evidence that the pen drive is faulty Answer D is incorrect logging on with local administra tor privileges does not necessarily prohibit a user from being able to store files to removable media 9 You are a desktop support technician Layla is attempting to format a USB 2 0 pen drive in her computer However the format option is not available How can you make the format option available to her Q A Using group policies enable the program format exe for Layla s account Q B Using group policies remove Layla s name from Restricted Groups Q C Add Layla s name to the local Administrators group on her computer Q D Modify the local policy on the machine Allowed to Format and Eject Removable Objects Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage 133 Answer D is correct By modifying the local policy computer Configuration Windows Settings Security Settings Local Policies Security Options Devices Allowed to Format and Eject Removable Objects administrators By default only administrators are allowed to format and eject removable media Answer A is in
46. s XP provides numerable drivers for such devices however because they are relatively new they might come with interesting challenges For example you can extend the Disk Quotas feature of Windows XP to apply to removeable media using a group policy This might frustrate users attempting to store files such as MP3 files on removable media The value is stored in Group Policies under Computer Policy Administrative Templates System Disk Quotas Apply Policy to Removable Media Use gpedit msc to edit the local policy Saving files to removable media can create other challenges as shown in Figure 3 15 For example to avoid errors when writing to media don t dis connect FAT16 formatted removable storage devices prematurely If a user ejects a FAT16 formatted removable storage device problems could be caused by the 8 second write flush delays a delay originally created on those file systems for performance reasons Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage 121 FAT16 partitions range from 16MB to 2GB This size was once common for hard disks and has become popular again as removable storage sizes increase FAT12 volumes do not have this problem because they are primarily used for floppy disks and are not designed to use a write behind delay 2 CD Writing Wizard Cannot Complete the CD Writing Wizard There was an error in the writing process The disc T you have attempted to write may no longer be usable What do you
47. sk disk 1 has a capacity of 30GB with 20GB of unallo cated free space Hazel needs to extend drive D a simple volume on her computer so that the volume has an increased amount of total disk space from 7GB to 14GB How can you accomplish this without deleting any existing data Select all correct answers Q A Repartition and reformat drive C B Extend drive D to an area of free space on disk 1 C Extend drive D to an area of free space on disk 0 Q D Convert disk 1 to Basic and extend the volume Answers B and C are correct You can extend a simple volume on a Dynamic disk onto unallocated free space of additional Dynamic disks up to a maximum of 32 Dynamic disks this process automatically turns the volume into a spanned volume You can also extend a simple vol ume on a Dynamic disk onto an area of unallocated free space on the same Dynamic disk Answer A is incorrect because repartitioning and reformatting a disk deletes any data stored on the disk Answer D is incorrect because converting a disk from Dynamic to Basic deletes any data stored on the disk Managing and Troubleshooting Desktop Storage 131 6 You are a desktop support technician To make accessing several differ ent hard drive volumes and removable drives easier on a local Windows XP computer you want your users to be able to access each drive volume through different folder names located on the same drive letter How can you accomplish this Q A Use t
48. t to extend click Extend Volume and then follow the instructions on your screen In general you cannot extend a volume that maintains its entries in the par tition table This includes the system and boot volumes of the operating sys tem used to convert the disk from Basic to Dynamic Here are guidelines for extending a simple or a spanned volume gt You cannot extend volumes formatted using FAT or FAT32 You can extend a volume if it is formatted using NTFS or contains no file sys tem gt You cannot extend a volume that was converted from Basic to Dynamic by the Windows 2000 Disk Management tool gt If you extend a simple volume across multiple disks it becomes a spanned volume gt After you extend a Windows XP dynamic volume onto multiple disks you cannot stripe it gt You cannot extend a system volume or boot volume gt After a spanned volume is extended deleting any portion of it deletes the entire spanned volume gt You can extend both simple and spanned volumes onto a maximum of 32 Dynamic disks gt Spanned volumes write data to subsequent disks as each disk volume fills up Therefore a spanned volume writes data to physical disk 0 until it fills up then writes to physical disk 1 and so on Ifa single disk in the spanned volume fails only the data contained on that failed disk is lost Striped Volumes Striped volumes store data in stripes across two or more physical disks Data in a striped vo
49. ted on Basic disks for backward compatibility to NT 4 0 worksta tions However you cannot create such sets on Basic disks in Windows 2000 gt Under Windows XP Professional volume sets and stripe sets are strictly not supported during installations Windows XP Professional Setup does not allow an installation to complete if stripe sets or volume sets are present on Basic disks To migrate data on volume sets or stripe sets stored on Basic disks from Windows 2000 Professional to Windows XP Professional perform the fol lowing steps 112 Chapter 3 1 Under Windows 2000 back up the data 2 Under Windows 2000 use the Disk Management console to convert the Basic disks to Dynamic disks 3 Upgrade the operating system to Windows XP Professional Installing Windows XP on a Dynamic Disk If you create a dynamic volume from unallocated space on a Dynamic disk you cannot install Windows XP on that volume because Windows XP Setup recognizes only dynamic volumes that are in the volume s partition table Partition tables exist on basic volumes and in dynamic volumes that are the result of an upgraded Basic disk They do not appear on new dynamic vol umes Wait there s more Let s say you are able to upgrade a basic volume to dynamic by converting the Basic disk to a Dynamic disk You can install Windows XP on that vol ume but you cannot extend the volume because the volume information lives in the partition table
50. the diskpart exe command line tool shown in Figure 3 1 or use the Disk Management con sole shown in Figure 3 6 To create or delete a partition of logical drive follow these steps 1 Open the Disk Management console 2 To create a new partition right click an unallocated region of a Basic disk and then click New Partition 105 106 Chapter 3 To create a new logical drive right click an area of free space in an extended partition and then click New Logical Drive to start the Create Partition Wizard 3 Select Primary Partition Extended Partition or Logical Drive as appropriate and follow the instructions presented by the wizard to define the size and format of the new storage space 4 To remove a partition select Delete Partition from the partition s con text menu PREEN ox File Action View Help 2 Dsg Volume Layout Type File System Status Capacity Free Space Free Fault Tolerance 2c Partition Basic NTFS Healthy 5 3 99 GB 2 64 GB 66 No Qpomszenupi 0 Partition Healthy 1 56 GB OMB 0 New Partition Wizard g Completing the New Partition pisk 0 Wizard Basic 3 99 GB Online You have successfully completed the New Partition Wizard pisk1 You selected the following settings Basic Partition type Primary partition a 4 00 GB Disk selected Disk 1 Online Unallocated Partition size 500 MB Drive letter or path E File system
51. want to do O Eject this disc and try making another CD O Delete the files that are waiting to be written Save the files so that I can try again later CD software developed under license from Roxio Inc To close this wizard click Finish Figure 3 15 The CD Writing Wizard unable to write to a disc If a removable storage device is formatted with the FAT16 file system and users eject the device approximately 5 8 seconds after data was written to the device they will have abandoned the write flush delay on FAT16 file sys tems This can lead to unexpected consequences gt A user s storage device might remain in a nonflushed state gt Users might lose data that is stored on their removable storage device gt Users might experience problems or receive error messages when they insert the removable storage device into other host devices In short don t eject removable media prematurely In addition not everyone is permitted to format and eject removable media The local policy Computer Configuration Windows Settings Security Settings Local Policies Security Options Devices Allowed to Format and Eject Removable Objects controls those privileges By default only administrators are allowed to format and eject removable objects When users work with disks disk reading problems can occur when they try to open a file execute a program from disk or switch disks while using pro grams that require multiple disks The
52. y might receive error messages refer ring to problems reading the disk or copying specific files Following are examples of Microsoft error messages 122 Chapter 3 gt A device attached to the system is not functioning gt Unable to read drive letter gt A required file kerne132 d11 was not found gt Application name is not a valid WIN32 application gt An error reading from file Installer Error 1305 gt Insufficient memory Other problems users might experience include the following gt When they insert the disc in the drive or read a disc the computer freezes or hangs see dies gt The disc does not eject from the drive gt Reading from the disc takes an unbelievably long time As a desktop support technician what can you do The following trou bleshooting guidelines might provide some ideas gt Don t forget the obvious If you experience problems with a DVD disc make sure that you insert the DVD into a DVD drive not a CD ROM drive gt Examine the disc for obvious physical damage such as warping or large scratches If the disc is damaged contact the manufacturer for a replace ment CD gt Clean the CD ROM or DVD ROM disc using a disc cleaning kit or gently wipe the silver side of the disc with a soft lint free cotton cloth Do not use paper cloth because it can scratch the disc Resist the temp tation to use a circular motion because it also can scratch the disc Wipe the disc from
53. your disk configuration such as con verting to Dynamic disks and volumes if you ever want to uninstall XP and revert back to the previous operating system Dynamic disks have some additional limitations You can install Windows XP on a dynamic volume that you converted from a Basic disk but you can t extend either the system or the boot partition Additionally any disk trou bleshooting tools you ve used might not be able to read the dynamic Disk Management database Dynamic disks are only supported on desktop or server systems that use Small Computer System Interface SCSI Fibre Channel Serial Storage Architecture SSA Integrated Drive Electronics IDE Enhanced IDE 99 100 Chapter 3 EIDE Ultra Direct Memory Access DMA or Advanced Technology Attachment ATA interfaces Dynamic disks are not supported on portable computers removable disks such as Jaz or Zip drives and disks connected via USB or FireWire IEEE 1394 interfaces If you need to configure an IEEE 1394 disk drive to dynam ic see Knowledge Base Article 299598 They are also not supported on Windows XP Home Edition They are also not supported on hard drives with a sector size larger than 512 bytes Cluster disks groups of several disks that serve to function as a sin gle disk are not supported either Converting Basic Disks to Dynamic Disks When you perform a new installation of Windows XP Professional or when you perform an upgrade installat
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