Before you can use a primary partition, logical drive, or volume, you
must format it. Formatting creates the file structures necessary to
work with files and folders. If you want to clean out a partition,
logical drive, or volume and remove all existing data, you can use
formatting to do this as well.
Caution
A partition with unformatted space on a disk is listed with RAW as
the file system type. A formatted partition is listed with its
appropriate file system type, such as NTFS. If you reformat a formatted
partition, you will destroy all data in the partition.
To format a primary partition, logical drive, or volume, follow these steps:
-
In Disk Management, press and hold or right-click the primary
partition, logical drive, or volume you want to format and then choose
Format. This displays the Format dialog box, as shown in Figure 19. -
In the Volume Label box, type a descriptive label for the primary
partition, logical drive, or volume. In most cases, you’ll want to use a
label that helps you and other administrators determine what type of
data is stored in the partition or on the logical drive. -
Select the file system type. The available types depend on the size
of the volume you are formatting. Keep in mind that only NTFS allows you
to use the advanced file-system features of Windows Server 2012,
including advanced file-access permissions, compression, encryption,
disk quotas, shadow copies, remote storage, and sparse files. -
Use the Allocation Unit Size field to specify the basic
unit in which disk space should be allocated. In most cases, the
default size is the best option to use. Note that ReFS volumes have a
fixed allocation unit size. -
Select the Perform A Quick Format check box if you want to format the
partition without checking for errors. Although this option can save
you a few minutes, Disk Management won’t mark bad sectors on the disk or
lock them out, and this can lead to problems with data integrity later
on. -
If you want files and folders to be compressed automatically, select
the Enable File And Folder Compression check box. Compression is
available only for NTFS. -
Tap or click OK to begin formatting using the specified options. When prompted to confirm, tap or click OK again.
4.3 Configuring drive letters
Each primary partition, logical drive, or volume on a disk can have
one drive letter and one or more drive paths associated with it. You can
assign, change, or remove driver letters and mount points at any time
without having to restart the computer. Windows Server 2012 also allows
you to change the drive letter associated with CD/DVD-ROM drives. You
cannot, however, change or remove the drive letter of a system volume,
boot volume, or any volume that contains a paging file. Additionally, on
GPT disks, you can assign drive letters only to primary partitions. You cannot assign driver letters to other types of partitions on GPT disks.
To add, change, or remove a drive letter, press and hold or
right-click the primary partition, logical drive, or volume in Disk
Management and choose Change Drive Letter And Paths. This opens the
dialog box shown in Figure 20.
Any current drive letter and mount points associated with the selected drive are displayed. You have the following options:
-
Add a drive letter
If the primary partition, logical drive, or volume doesn’t yet have a
drive-letter assignment, you can add one by tapping or clicking Add. In
the Add Drive Letter Or Path dialog box that opens, select the drive
letter to use from the drop-down list and then tap or click OK. -
Change an existing drive letter
If you want to change the drive letter, tap or click Change, select the
drive letter to use from the drop-down list, and then tap or click OK.
Confirm the action when prompted by tapping or clicking Yes. -
Remove a drive letter
If you want to remove the drive letter, tap or click Remove and then
confirm the action when prompted by tapping or clicking Yes.
Note
When you change or remove a drive letter, the volume or partition
will no longer be accessible using the old drive letter, and this can
cause programs using the volume to not work properly or it can cause the
partition to stop running.
After you make a change, the new drive letter or mount point
assignment is made automatically as long as the volume or partition is
not in use. If the partition or volume is in use, Windows Server 2012
displays the warning shown in Figure 21.
This prompt tells you the drive is in use and the new drive letter
won’t be assigned until you restart the computer. At this point, you can
tap or click No to cancel the change or tap or click Yes to accept the
change and continue. If you cancel the change, the new drive letter is
not assigned. If you accept the change and continue, the old drive
letter remains available for use by users and programs until you restart
the computer. When you restart the computer, the new drive letter is
applied.
4.4 Configuring mount points
Any volume or partition can be mounted to an empty NTFS folder as
long as the folder is on a fixed disk drive rather than a removable
media drive. A volume or partition mounted in such a way is called a mount point. Each volume or partition can have multiple mount
points associated with it. For example, you could mount a volume to the
root folder of the C drive as both C:\EngData and C:\DevData, giving
the appearance that these are separate folders.
The real value of mount
points, however, lies in how they give you the capability to create the
appearance of a single file system from multiple hard-disk drives
without having to use spanned volumes. Consider the following scenario: A
department file server has four data drives—drive 1, drive 2, drive 3,
and drive 4. Rather than mount the drives as D, E, F, and G, you decide
it would be easier for users to work with the drives if they were all
mounted as folders of the system drive, which is C:\Data. You mount
drive 1 to C:\Data\UserData, drive 2 to C:\Data\CorpData, drive 3 to
C:\Data\Projects, and drive 4 to C:\Data\History. If you then shared the
C:\Data folder, users could access all the drives using a single share.
Note
Wondering why I mounted the drives under C:\Data rather than C:\, as
is recommended in some documentation? The primary reason I did this is
to help safeguard system security. I didn’t want users to have access to
other directories, which includes the operating system directories, on
the C drive.
To add or remove a mount point, press and hold or right-click the
volume or partition in Disk Management and choose Change Drive Letter
And Paths. This displays the Change Drive Letter And Paths For dialog
box (as shown in Figure 22), which shows any current mount point and mount points associated with the selected drive.
You now have the following options:
-
Add a mount point
Tap or click Add. Then in the Add Drive Letter Or Path dialog box,
select Mount In The Following Empty NTFS Folder, as shown in Figure 12-23.
Type the path to an existing folder or tap or click Browse to search
for or create a folder. Tap or click OK to mount the volume or
partition. -
Remove a mount point
If you want to remove a mount point, select the mount point and then
tap or click Remove. When prompted to confirm the action, tap or click
Yes.
Note
You can’t change a mount-point assignment after making it. However,
you can simply remove the mount point you want to change and then add a
new mount point so that the volume or partition is mounted as
appropriate.
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