05. Partitioning The Hard Drive
Disk drives are becoming increasingly larger as the need to store
more data increases. While the larger the drive, the
better is probably a good maxim, it does have its own setbacks. One
such setback is that, the larger the drive, the easier it is for the
data to get fragmented: that is, of course, assuming you are only
storing small amounts of data on a single drive; larger amounts will, of
course, take up more room thus reducing the available free space.
Large drives also take much longer to defragment, check for viruses,
spyware, malware and general maintenance. By physically partitioning a
hard drive you are not only creating separate rooms for your
data, you are also making it easier and quicker to maintain. After all,
you wouldn't live in a house with just one massive room, would you? So why have
one huge partition on your hard drive when you can have a number of
smaller, easier to manage partitions.
The Windows operating system comes with its own partitioning
software; however, to be candid, it isn't always ideal as it will not perform the
same type of tasks that most third party application would, but it does
what it is supposed to do and that is partition your hard drive.
If you are planning on moving, merging, or undeleting, a
partition then it would be far better to get a third party partitioning
application because the one supplied with the Windows operating system
either doesn't perform the task as well or simply doesn't perform the
task at all.
Partition Types
Creating a partition is quite easy; however there are a few rules
that you need to stick to. To begin with there are five partition
categories:
- Unallocated - Colour Code: Black
- Primary - Colour Code: Dark Blue
- Extended - Colour Code: Dark Green
- Free Space - Colour Code: Light Green
- Logical - Colour Code: Light Blue
Unallocated
Unallocated refers to space that has not, currently, been turned into
a partition. It is simply blank. Therefore, if your drive contains no
partitions, the Windows Disk Management graphical interface will show
that the space is unallocated.
Primary
The hard drive can contain a maximum of four Primary partitions. If
you already have, say, three (3) partitions and you don't want to
allocate all of the remaining unallocated space to a partition, the new,
fourth (4th) partition becomes and Extended partition. The Extended partition
then allows you to create any amount, up to the maximum number of
available drive letters, of Logical partitions.
Extended
An Extended partition is a partition which can be sub-divided into a
number of Logical partitions. The Extended partition itself is not
formatted and isn't assigned a drive letter.
Free Space
If you have, say, a 500GB partition and you reduce this to, say,
250GB the remainder of the hard drive (250GB) will be classified as Free
Space. Free space is the amount of space left on the drive after a partition
has been created.
Logical
Logical drives are created within an Extended partition. There are no
restrictions, other than the amount of available drive letters, as to
how many Logical drives the Extended partition can hold.
To partition your hard drive proceed as follows:
- Click the Windows Start button.
- On the Right of the Start Menu, Click
Control Panel.
- In Control Panel, Click Administrative Tools.
Fig: 5-1 In Control Panel, click the Administrative Tools option
- In the Administrative Tools window, Click on the
Computer
Management option.
Fig: 5-2 To access the Computer management window, click the
computer management option
- In the Computer Management window, Click on the
Disk Management
option in the left hand pane.
Fig: 5-3 You access Disk management by clicking its option in
the left hand pane of the Computer management window
- A new window will now appear (see Fig: 5-4)
Fig: 5-4 The Disk management window displays a list and a
graphical display of your hard drive partitions
- Right click on the unallocated space or
Free Space section of
the partition display and, from the drop down menu, select
New
Simple Volume. (See Fig: 5-5)
Fig: 5-5 Select the New Simple Volume to create a partition
- The new Simple Volume Wizard will now appear.
Fig: 5-6 Click the Next button to start the wizard
- Press the Next button to start the wizard.
- In the next window type in the size of the
partition you desire. In our example we are going to create a 100GB
partition so we type: 100000 into the Simple Volume size in MB box. (Fig: 5-7)
Fig: 5-7 Type in the desired size (in Megabytes) for your
partition
- When you have type in the desired size of your partition, Press
the Next button.
Fig: 5-8 Windows automatically assigns a drive letter
- Windows will automatically assign a drive letter
to this new partition. You can, if you wish, change the drive letter
by pressing the down arrow next to the Assign the following drive letter
option.
- Once the drive letter has been assign, press the Next button.
Fig: 5-9 Give your new partition a name
- The next screen shows the format option. The
default is NTFS. You should stick with this unless there is an
obvious need to change it. You are also able to
give your new partition a name by typing the
desired name into the Volume Label dialogue box.
- After you have typed in the volume name, Click the Next button.
Fig: 5-10 Check the summary of settings before continuing
- You are now presented with a summary of settings you have chosen
for your new partition.
- Check that these are correct and then press the
Next button. If
they are not correct, click the back button until you come to the
screen that needs changing.
Fig: 5-11 Your Partition has now been complete and is ready for use
- The wizard will then begin to format your hard drive. Once completed the partition should
display the Volume name along with Healthy Primary or
Healthy
Logical.
- Your partition is now complete and ready for use.