Managing hard drives in Windows 7. Programs for working with hard drive partitions

While working with a personal computer, it may be necessary to change, add or delete hard disk partitions. If during the initial installation of Windows 7 the creation of partitions takes place interactively and is intuitive, then making changes to the created partitions requires a certain skill. Due to the lack of any experience in these matters, the user may incorrectly perform the necessary actions, which will subsequently lead to complete loss of data or even failure of the hard drive. The Disk Management utility will help simplify the process of creating and changing disk partitions.

Disk Management utility and its functions

The Disk Management utility is a tool for performing various operations with hard drives and their partitions.

With its help you can:

• create, delete, merge volumes on a disk;
• compress volumes;
• format volumes;
• assign letters for volumes;
• add volumes without rebooting;
• manage local and remote disks on the network.

Opening Disk Management

There are several ways to launch the program.

Via the Start menu

1. Click on the “Start” menu and right-click on “Computer”. Select "Management".

   Right-click on “Computer” and select “Manage”

2. In the “Computer Management” window that opens, click on “Disk Management”.

   Select "Disk Management"

3. The Disk Management window will open.

   Disk Management window

Via command line

Via "Control Panel"

1. Click on the “Start” menu and select “Control Panel”.

   Click “Control Panel”

2. In the search bar, enter “administration” and click on the “Administration” section that appears.

   Click on the “Administration” section

3. Select “Computer Management” from the list.

   Select "Computer Management"

4. In the “Computer Management” window that opens, click on “Disk Management”.

   Click on “Disk Management”

Why doesn't Disk Management open?

There are situations when the Disk Management console does not open or opens but the console window is blank and the warning “Could not connect to the Logical Disk Manager service” appears.

The reasons that caused this problem to appear may be different. To eliminate their influence on the disk management process, you must perform the following steps:

1. Conduct an anti-virus scan. It is recommended to launch an antivirus program from an optical disk or from a protected flash drive. After checking, open the “Quarantine” of the antivirus. If the dmdskmgr.dll library is in Quarantine, then return it to its place.
2. Run the command Rundll32 setupapi, InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 %windir%\inf\dmreg.inf through the Start menu and the Run window.
3. Go to “Control Panel” - “Administration” - “Services” and make sure that “Logical Disk Manager” and “Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service” are running. If they are stopped, then enable them.
4. Enter the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) menu. To do this, when turning on the computer, press Del, F2 or Esc (the choice of key depends on the computer manufacturer). If the launch panel does not contain information about the connected HDD, then check the connecting cables at the points of connection to the drive.

How to create a logical drive

The very first hard drives, first created by IBM in 1973, contained 30 cylinders, each of which was divided into 30 tracks. By analogy with automatic rifles using the .30–30 Winchester cartridge, such discs were called “Winchesters”. Over time, in colloquial speech the word “Winchester” was transformed into “screw”.

Most hard drives are sold already prepared for installing Windows, i.e. the main partition has already been created on them. The remaining operations are carried out during the system installation process. Installation is carried out from a bootable optical disk or USB device. At one of the installation stages, a window will appear asking you to select a space to install the system.

If the hard drive was not prepared for immediate installation of the system before going on sale, then all operations will have to be done by the user. To do this, you will need a bootable optical disc or USB drive.

Before installation, configure the BIOS (basic input/output system) to boot from a DVD or USB drive:

When forming a partition on a hard drive, all free space is used, and additional partitions are created after installing Windows 7.

If possible, it is better to use Windows PE boot, which has Acronis Disk Director or Partition Magic built-in. These utilities are designed to manage hard drive partitions.

Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) is used to prepare your computer for Windows installation. It is a built-in component of other system installation and recovery tools and is not intended to be used as a primary operating system.

If you don't have a bootable disk like Windows PE, you can:

The created logical drives must be formatted using the format.com utility. Now you can proceed to installing Windows 7.

Hard drive logical drive management

You can manage hard drive partitions through the context menu of each of them. They provide a set of commands necessary for work.

Compressing a Partition

The command to compress a logical drive is specified in the context menu.

Creating a section

A new partition is created in a free area of ​​the hard drive that is not yet part of a formatted volume. At the bottom of the Disk Management console, this space is highlighted in bright green, and in the legend line it is indicated as “Free”.

1. Once the partition has been compressed, right-click on the unallocated space and select “Create simple volume” from the context menu.

   Right-click on the unallocated space and select “Create simple volume” from the context menu

2. The “Create Simple Volume Wizard” will launch.

   After launching the “Create a Simple Volume Wizard”, click “Next”

3. Specify the size of the new volume.

   Specify the size of the new volume

4. Assign a letter (letter) to the disk.

   Assign a letter to the disk

5. We decide on the file system, cluster size and volume label.
6. We format the partition.

   We format the partition

7. In the last window, click on the “Finish” button and create a new logical drive.

   Click on the “Finish” button

After reformatting, the volume is ready for use.

Changing the section letter

Merging sections

When there is a need to reduce the number of logical drives, two are merged into one joint logical drive. Before merging, the necessary information from the logical drive being removed is copied to another drive or removable media.

To merge one drive with another:

1. Select the volume that we want to attach and call the context menu. Click on “Delete Volume”.

   

redistribute space on local disks, their. That is, the functionality of this tool is practically a lightweight version of programs such as Acronis Disk Director, Partition magic and other disk management programs. And now I will show you how to manage it...

Disk management in windows 7 great tool to redistribute space on local disks, delete local disks, create their. That is, the functionality of this tool is practically a lightweight version of programs such as Acronis Disk Director, Partition magic and other disk management programs. And now I will show you how to manage it.

My plan of action is this:

1. Reduce local disk D by 50 GB.

2. Using the freed up space, create a new local disk of 25 GB in size.

3. Increase this newly created disk by the remaining 25 GB.

4. Return everything to its place.

The Disk Management tool can be found at the following address: Start - Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Disk Management. The top block of this window contains a list of local disks, the bottom block shows the distribution of space between them and all connected media.

To shrink local drive D, right-click on it and select “ Shrink Volume..." A window like this will appear

And then this.

In this window, we select how much we need to compress the local disk and we can immediately see how much space will remain on this disk. So, enter the size for which we will compress disk and click " Compress».

After some time at the bottom of the window " Disk Management"A scary black area will appear, but don't be alarmed, everything is going according to plan.

This is a black area; there is an unallocated area of ​​the hard drive.

The first point of the plan is completed, let's move on to the second: Creating a new local disk 25 GB in size. To do this, right-click on this black area and select “ Create a simple volume..." The “Create Simple Volume Wizard” will open.

And here it is “Ulyalya”.

Everything worked out. New local disk size 25 GB. created. Moreover, as soon as it is created, you will be prompted to open it, as if you had inserted a disk or flash drive, this is good.

Let's move on to point 3: Let's increase the created local disk to the remaining free space. To do this, right-click on the new disk and select “ Extend Volume..." The Volume Expansion Wizard window opens.

So, the last stage, to return everything back, for this you need remove local disk“Ulyalya” and expand disk D. To delete a local disk, right-click on the desired disk and select “ Delete volume..." We will see a warning that all data on this disk will be destroyed.

We agree. And again the unmarked area appears. And we already know how to expand the disk using the unallocated area.

I would also like to say that it was impossible to expand drive C using this unallocated area, because you can expand a local disk only when the unallocated area is adjacent to it. That is, this black area should be located next to the local drive C. But there is a solution, albeit a little “crazy”.

To expand drive C (in my situation, when it is not adjacent to the unallocated area), you need to: shrink local drive D as much as possible, create a new volume, move information from drive D there, delete local drive D, and then expand local drive C, then assign the letter D to the newly created partition and expand it to the remaining space. This is such a long process... Good luck!

Article taken from open sources: http://www.goodkomp.com/page/upravlenie-diskami-windows-7#1

The disk and file subsystems of a computer are usually not the subject of much user attention. The hard drive is a fairly reliable thing and functions as if on its own, without attracting the attention of the average user at all.

Having mastered the basic techniques for working with files and folders, such a user brings them to complete automation, without thinking about the existence of additional tools for servicing the hard drive. Disk management is completely transferred to the operating system.

The problem begins either when the file system shows a noticeable decrease in performance, or when it begins to crash. Another reason for a more careful study of this topic: installing several “screws” on a PC at the same time.

Like any complex device, a hard drive needs regular maintenance. Although Windows 7 partially takes care of these concerns, it is not able to solve all the problems for you on its own. Otherwise, “brakes” are guaranteed over time. At a minimum, you need to be able to do the following things:

• Clean the file system from garbage. The concept of garbage includes temporary files, proliferated browser cookies, duplicate information, etc.
• Defragment your hard drive. The Windows file system is built in such a way that what the user sees as a whole is actually individual fragments of files scattered on the magnetic surface of the hard drive, combined into a chain: each previous fragment is known to each next one. To read a file as a whole, you need to assemble these parts together, which requires a large number of reading cycles from different places on the surface. The same thing happens when recording. Defragmentation allows you to collect all these pieces into one place.
• View and edit information about sections.
• Be able to open access to hidden and system files and folders.
• If necessary, be able to work with several “screws” at once.

And also perform some other useful actions. In our note we will not discuss the entire range of these issues, but will focus only on a few.

How to read partition information?

For those who are not in the know, let us explain: in Windows there is such a thing as a “snap-in”.

This is an executable file with the .msc extension that runs like a regular exe. All snap-ins have a uniform interface and are built on COM technology - the basis of the internal structure of this operating system.

The Disk Management window is also a snap-in. You can run it by typing its name diskmgmt.msc in the “Run” window as shown in the following figure:

As a result, we will see the snap-in window with the heading “Disk Management”. This is what the application looks like:

This interface is intuitive and simple. In the top panel of the window we see a list of all volumes (or partitions) available on the “screw” with accompanying information about them, such as:

• Section name.
• Type of section.
• Its full capacity.
• Its status (different sections may have different statuses).
• The remaining free space, expressed in gigabytes and as a percentage of the total.

And other information. The bottom panel contains a list of drives and partitions. It is from here that you can perform operations on volumes and drives. To do this, right-click on the volume name and select a specific operation from the “Actions” submenu.

The main advantage of the interface is that everything here is collected in a pile - there is no need to wander through different menus and windows to carry out your plans.

Volume Operations

Let's look at some non-obvious operations with partitions. First, let's discuss the transition from the MBR format to the GPT format. Both of these formats correspond to different types of bootloader. MBR is a classic, but now outdated bootloader format.

It has obvious limitations both in volume size (no more than 2 TB) and in the number of volumes - no more than four are supported. Do not confuse volume and section - these are somewhat different concepts from each other. Read about their differences on the Internet. The GPT format is built on GUID technology and does not have these restrictions.

So if you have a large disk, feel free to convert MBR to GPT. However, in this case, all data on the disk will be destroyed - they will need to be copied to another location.

There is a method that allows you not to wander through folders, but use one command to call the Disk Management service.

“Command Line” is a powerful tool for calling absolutely all services on your computer, launching applications and executable files. Disk Management is no exception.

To do this you need:

Why doesn't Disk Management open?

A rare situation, but it still happens. This can happen in two cases:

• service disabled;
• the service has been deleted.

If for some reason your Disk Management service is disabled, the fix is ​​quite simple:

The service can be deleted if your antivirus has deleted the dmserver.dll file. This happens if an emulator program interferes with the operation of this service. Then you will have to restore this file from your antivirus quarantine. It is possible that this file did not exist in the first place. Some pirated assemblies are problematic due to their unreliability in the operation of some Windows services. Reinstalling the system to a more reliable one can help here.

How to manage hard disk partitions

The Windows 7 system allows you to carry out some procedures with hard disk volumes: compress and expand space, rename, etc. This can help make using your computer more comfortable and even faster. After all, if you don’t need to search in one large section for a movie that is buried behind seven folders, you can save time.

How to properly create a hard drive partition

So, let's imagine that you have unallocated space on your hard drive that you would be happy to use for another partition. And there is no point in keeping unused space on the hard drive.

To create a new partition:

1. Right-click the unallocated space on the disk where you want to create the partition and click the Create Simple Volume button. The Create Simple Volume Wizard will launch.
   The “Create simple volume” command allows you to create a hard disk volume from unallocated space
2. Click the "Next" button.
   Create Simple Volume Wizard - a service that performs operations to create a new volume
3. Check the future size of the new volume and click Next.
   Setting that selects the size of the new volume
4. Check the drive letter that will be assigned to the new volume (it must be different from those already used on your computer), click the "Next" button.
   Settings window that specifies the name and path to the volume
5. Make sure the file system is set to NTFS and click Next.
   A setting that specifies the file system setting in which the new volume will be formatted
6. Click the "Done" button.
   Confirming all settings and starting the creation of a new volume
7. The volume will begin formatting and all settings will be applied once it is complete.
   New created volume in Disk Management

Compressing space on a hard drive partition

The procedure for shrinking a partition allows you to unpin an area from it that is not currently in use. This space on the HDD becomes unallocated, that is, available for creating a partition and its further use as an independent local disk.

To compress space on the disk you need:

Video: the process of compressing a hard drive partition

How to merge and expand disks

The standard Windows 7 system for combining HDD partitions is not ideal, as it has a flaw - the joined partitions will completely lose the information stored on them. Therefore, take care in advance to save important information.

Video: how to expand a hard drive partition

Other disk functionality

You can also change the letter used to designate a particular partition of the hard drive. To do this, just select “Change drive letter or path” and specify a free letter of the Latin alphabet. You need to remember that if programs or games are installed on this disk, the actual path to them will change. This means that shortcuts and other systems for accessing these programs will no longer work correctly.

The Change Volume Letter command allows you to change the volume letter and path

In the "Disk Management" menu you have access to the function: "Make disk active". It means that the computer will try to load the operating system from this particular partition. And if there is not one on it, it will try to download from each volume in alphabetical order until it finds the necessary download files.

It is very functional, has more than 10 disk operations, and is completely free. All changes you make are virtual until you commit them, which means you have room for “error” and viewing the result. Among the minuses, perhaps, is only that the program does not have a Russian interface.

Acronis Disk Director is the most popular disk management program. It has huge and powerful potential, the ability to work from a boot disk and many other advantages. He is a long-time leader in working with hard disk partitions. Free for home use.
Interface of the Acronis Disk Director program for quickly resolving issues with hard drives

Our instructions will help you master and save information on your computer and will make working with hard drives more convenient and comfortable.

Hard drive management features have grown with the introduction of Windows 8. This version of Windows introduces easy-to-use tools that allow you to quickly perform operations such as initializing drives, creating partitions and volumes, formatting and deleting them, and resizing volumes without losing data. . Sooner or later, knowledge of these tools can be useful, especially when problems arise with the hard drive or you want to upgrade your computer by installing a new hard drive.

Connecting the hard drive to the system unit itself is not a big problem. All cables going to the drive or motherboard have their own corresponding connector, which can only be connected in the correct way, thereby protecting these devices from damage.

Before installing the second hard drive, locate the four four screws. Prepare a cable that connects the drive to the motherboard and possibly a SATA power adapter if the power supply suddenly does not have a free connector. It happens that when you buy an assembled computer, SATA is used for the hard drive and optical drive, but it is not possible to connect a second drive due to the lack of a power cable with the appropriate connector.

Before starting installation, turn off the power from the computer - there should be a corresponding switch on the back of the power supply; if not, unplug the power cable from the electrical outlet.

After turning off the computer, open the case and look for a wiring harness with four wires (yellow, red and two black) with a wide connector. This connector is used to connect power to the hard drive. A narrower SATA cable connector is used to connect to the motherboard.

Connect the SATA cable to an open slot on the motherboard. It doesn't matter which slot you plug the drive into. A hard drive with an operating system and an optical drive may already be connected to the SATA slots, if the computer is not so old that these drives or one of them is still connected to the IDE controller. After connecting the hard drive, insert it into the appropriate free space and secure it with screws.

After the computer boots, the system should recognize it as a new device. But, if you launch any application and try to use a new disk, it turns out that the system does not see it. Therefore, first you need to initialize it, and then create a new volume on it, which the system will recognize as a separate hard drive (the so-called logical drive).

After starting the computer, in the Start menu, click on the “Desktop” tile. In the window that appears, click the Quick Access Toolbar icon. In the left pane of Explorer, click on the Computer tab. A list of all available drives will appear in the right pane of the window, but you won’t see the new drive here. Click the Computer menu and on the tool ribbon, click the Open Control Panel button.

By default, the Control Panel will have the category view enabled and the list of available functions will not include disk management tools. In this case, click on the View button and select small icons from the list
After that, in the Control Panel there is a list of all the tools for managing your computer. Double click on the Administration icon.