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IT 1001: Personal Computer Hardware and System Operations

Week - 4

Introduction to computer (Microsoft windows)

After you have started the computer, the area you are looking at is called the desktop. The desktop is usually different from one computer to another. This is because some items get added as new programs are installed on a computer, and other items get deleted at will. Eventually, you will know how to change the way your desktop looks.

The Microsoft Windows desktop is made of various parts. From the upper left to the lower left side of the screen, there are small pictures or images called icons. Each one is used to make the computer do

something.

The Desktop

The center and right empty area you look at is actually the desktop. Whenever you are asked to use the desktop, the request refers to that whole area.

The Taskbar

In the bottom section of the screen, there is (or there may be) a long object. It is called the Taskbar:

On the left side of the taskbar, there is an object labeled Start or . The appearance of this object depends on the type of Windows you are using but it plays the same role.

On the right side of Start, there is a wide area that is empty when the computer starts. This is actually referred to as the taskbar. As you keep using the computer, this area would be filled with some objects. In some versions (Windows 95, 98, Windows Server 2003), the color of the taskbar may be gray (or Silver). In some other versions (Windows Millennium), the taskbar may be yellowish. In Windows XP, it may be blue.

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On the far right side of the taskbar is a section called the tray area. One of the things that this area displays is the current time (as set on your computer).

Computer ShutdownAfter using the computer, you can exit from it, which is also referred to as shutting down the computer. The steps may be different depending on your operating system.

Computer Hibernate

Hibernation in computing is powering down a computer while retaining its state.Upon hibernation, the computer saves the contents of its random access memory (RAM) to a hard disk or other non-volatile storage. Upon resumption, the computer is exactly as it was upon entering hibernation.Hibernation saves electrical power. After hibernating, the hardware is completely powered down (just like for a regular shutdown). Therefore a hibernated machine uses no more electrical power than one which is switched off. Meanwhile, hibernation is a means of avoiding the burden of saving unsaved data before shutting down and restoring all running programs after powering back on.

Hibernation is used in laptops, which have limited battery power available. It can be set to happen automatically on a low battery alarm. Most desktops also support hibernation, mainly as a general energy saving measure. When used to save power, hibernation is similar to sleep mode and saves more power at the cost of slower resumption

Computer Sleep

Sleep mode can go by many different names, including Stand By (for Microsoft Windows 98-Server 2003), Sleep (for Mac OS 8-Mac OS X, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008), and Suspend (Windows 95, Linux). When placed in this sleep mode, aside from the RAM, which is required to restore the machine's state, the computer attempts to cut power to all unneeded parts of the machine. Because of the large power savings, most laptops automatically enter this mode when the computer is running on batteries and the lid is closed.

A computer must consume some power while sleeping to run the circuits required to recognize and act on a wake-up event;

Organizing and Managing files and folders

Working with files and foldersA file is an item that contains information—for example, text or images or music. When opened, a file can look very much like a text document or a picture that you might find on someone's desk or in a filing cabinet. On

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your computer, files are represented with icons; this makes it easy to recognize a type of file by looking at its icon. Here are some common file icons:Icons for a few types of files

A folder is a container you can use to store files in. If you had thousands of paper files on your desk, it would be nearly impossible to find any particular file when you needed it. That's why people often store paper files in folders inside a filing cabinet. On your computer, folders work the same way. Here are some typical folder icons:

An empty folder (left); a folder containing files (right)

Folders can also store other folders. A folder within a folder is usually called a subfolder. You can create any number of subfolders, and each can hold

any number of files and additional subfolders.

Using libraries to access your files and foldersWhen it comes to getting organized, you don't need to start from scratch. You can use libraries, a feature new to this version of Windows, to access your files and folders, and arrange them in different ways. Here's a list of the four default libraries and what they're typically used for: Documents library. Use this library to organize and arrange word-processing documents, spreadsheets,

presentations, and other text-related files. For more information, see Managing your documents.

By default, files that you move, copy, or save to the Documents library are stored in the My Documents folder.

Pictures library. Use this library to organize and arrange your digital pictures, whether you get them from your camera, scanner, or in e-mail from other people. For more information, see Managing your pictures.

By default, files that you move, copy, or save to the Pictures library are stored in the My Pictures folder. Music library. Use this library to organize and arrange your digital music, such as songs that you rip from

an audio CD or that you download from the Internet. For more information, see Managing your music.

By default, files that you move, copy, or save to the Music library are stored in the My Music folder. Videos library. Use this library to organize and arrange your videos, such as clips from your digital

camera or camcorder, or video files that you download from the Internet. For more information, see Managing your videos.

By default, files that you move, copy, or save to the Videos library are stored in the My Videos folder.

To open the Documents, Pictures, or Music libraries, click the Start button , and then click Documents, Pictures, or Music.

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You can open common libraries from the Start menu

Understanding the parts of a windowWhen you open a folder or library, you see it in a window. The various parts of this window are designed to help you navigate around Windows or work with files, folders, and libraries more easily. Here's a typical window and each of its parts:

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Window part What it's useful for

Navigation pane

Use the navigation pane to access libraries, folders, saved searches, and even entire hard disks. Use the Favorites section to open your most commonly used folders and searches; use the Libraries section to access your libraries. You can also expand Computer to browse folders and subfolders. For more information, see Working with the navigation pane.

Back and Forward buttons

Use the Back button and the Forward button to navigate to other folders or libraries you've already opened without closing the current window. These buttons work together with the address bar; after you use the address bar to change folders, for example, you can use the Back button to return to the previous folder.

Toolbar Use the toolbar to perform common tasks, such as changing the appearance of your files and folders, burning files to a CD, or starting a digital picture slide show. The toolbar's buttons change to show only the tasks that are relevant. For example, if you click a picture file, the toolbar shows different buttons than it would if you clicked a music file.

Address bar Use the address bar to navigate to a different folder or library or to go back to a previous one. For more information, see Navigate using the address bar.

Library pane The library pane appears only when you are in a library (such as the Documents library). Use the library pane to customize the library or to arrange the files by different properties. For more information, see Working with libraries.

Column headings

Use the column headings to change how the files in the file list are organized. For example, you can click the left side of a column heading to change the order the files and folders are displayed in, or you can click the right side to filter the files in different ways. (Note that column headings are available only in Details view. To learn how to switch to Details view, see 'Viewing and arranging files and folders' later in this topic.)

File list This is where the contents of the current folder or library are displayed. If you type in the search box to find a file, only the files that match your current view (including files in subfolders) will appear.

Search box Type a word or phrase in the search box to look for an item in the current folder or library. The search begins as soon as you begin typing—so if you type "B," for example, all the files with names starting with the letter B will appear in the file list. For more information, see Find a file or folder.

Details pane Use the details pane to see the most common properties associated with the selected file. File properties are information about a file, such as the author, the date you last changed the file, and any descriptive tags you might have added to the file. For more information, see Change the properties for a file.

Preview pane Use the preview pane to see the contents of most files. If you select an e-mail message, text file, or picture, for example, you can see its contents without opening it in a program. If you don't see the preview pane, click the Preview pane button in the toolbar to turn it on.

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Viewing and arranging files and foldersWhen you open a folder or library, you can change how the files look in the window. For example, you might prefer larger (or smaller) icons or a view that lets you see different kinds of information about each file. To make these kinds of changes, use the Views button in the toolbar.

Each time you click the left side of the Views button, it changes the way your files and folders are displayed by cycling through five different views: Large Icons, List, a view called Details that shows several columns of information about the file, a smaller icon view called Tiles, and a view called Content that shows some of the content from within the file.

If you click the arrow on the right side of the Views button, you have more choices. Move the slider up or down to fine-tune the size of the file and folder icons. You can see the icons change size as you move the slider.

The Views options

In libraries, you can go a step further by arranging your files in different ways. For example, say you want to arrange the files in your Music library by genre (such as Jazz and Classical):

1. Click the Start button , and then click Music.

2. In the library pane (above the file list), click the menu next to Arrange by, and then click Genre.

Finding filesDepending on how many files you have and how they are organized, finding a file might mean browsing through hundreds of files and subfolders—not an easy task. To save time and effort, use the search box to find your file.

The search box

The search box is located at the top of every window. To find a file, open the folder or library that makes the most sense as a starting point for your search, click the search box, and start typing. The search box filters the current view based on the text that you type. Files are displayed as search results if your search term matches the file's name, tags or other properties, or even the text inside a text document.

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If you're searching for a file based on a property (such as the file's type), you can narrow the search before you start typing by clicking the search box, and then clicking one of the properties just below the search box. This adds a search filter (such as "type") to your search text, which will give you more accurate results.

If you aren't seeing the file you're looking for, you can change the entire scope of a search by clicking one of the options at the bottom of the search results. For example, if you search for a file in the Documents library but you can't find it, you can click Libraries to expand the search to the rest of your libraries.

Copying and moving files and foldersOccasionally, you might want to change where files are stored on your computer. You might want to move files to a different folder, for example, or copy them to removable media (such as CDs or memory cards) to share with another person.

Most people copy and move files using a method called drag and drop. Start by opening the folder that contains the file or folder you want to move. Then, open the folder where you want to move it to in a different window. Position the windows side by side on the desktop so that you can see the contents of both.

Next, drag the file or folder from the first folder to the second folder. That's all there is to it.

To copy or move a file, drag it from one

window to another

When using the drag-and-drop method, you might notice that sometimes the file or folder is copied, and at other times it's moved. If you're dragging an item between two folders that are stored on the same hard disk, then the item is moved so that two copies of the same file or folder aren't created in the same location. If you drag the item to a folder that's in a different location (such as a network location) or to removable media like a CD, then the item is copied.

Creating and deleting filesThe most common way to create new files is by using a program. For example, you can create a text document in a word-processing program or a movie file in a video-editing program.

Some programs create a file as soon as you open them. When you open WordPad, for example, it starts with a blank page. This represents an empty (and unsaved) file. Start typing, and when you are ready to save your work, click the Save button . In the dialog box that appears, type a file name that will help you find the file again in the future, and then click Save.

By default, most programs save files in common folders like My Documents and My Pictures, which makes it easy to find the files again next time.

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When you no longer need a file, you can remove it from your computer to save space and to keep your computer from getting cluttered with unwanted files. To delete a file, open the folder or library that contains the file, and then select the file. Press Delete on your keyboard and then, in the Delete File dialog box, click Yes.

When you delete a file, it's temporarily stored in the Recycle Bin. Think of the Recycle Bin as a safety net that allows you to recover files or folders that you might have accidentally deleted. Occasionally, you should empty the Recycle Bin to reclaim all of the hard disk space being used by your unwanted files

Opening an existing fileTo open a file, double-click it. The file will usually open in the program that you used to create or change it. For example, a text file will open in your word-processing program.

That's not always the case, though. Double-clicking a picture file, for example, will usually open a picture viewer. To change the picture, you need to use a different program. Right-click the file, click Open with, and then click the name of the program that you want to use.

Internal structure and file system of a hard disk

A hard disk drive (HDD) is a non-volatile, random access device for digital data. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the platters.

Each disk surface on a hard drive is divided into concentric circles, called tracks. Each track is further divided into 512-byte segments called sectors (also called records). All the tracks that are the same distance from the center of the platters make up one cylinder.

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The internal structure of a magnetic hard disk drive

Seek Time

Seek time is one of the three delays associated with reading or writing data on a computer's disk drive, and somewhat similar for CD or DVD drives. The others are rotational delay and transfer time. In order to read or write data in a particular place on the disk, the read/write head of the disk needs to be physically moved to the correct place. This process is known as seeking, and the time it takes for the head to move to the right place is the seek time. Seek time for a given disk varies depending on how far the head's destination is from its origin at the time of each read or write instruction; usually one discusses a disk's average seek time.

Rotational delay or rotational latency is the time required for the addressed area of a computer's disk drive (or drum) to rotate into a position where it is accessible by the read/write head. The term applies to rotating storage devices (such as a hard disk or floppy disk drive, and to the older drum memory systems).

Interface standard for Hard drives

Hard drives have different ways to interface with the computer. The interface standards define how hard drives and other drives such as CD, DVD, tape, and Blu-ray drives interface with a computer system. The standards define data speeds and transfer methods between the drive controller, the BIOS, the chipset on the motherboard, and the OS. The standards also define the type of cables and connectors used by the drive and the motherboard or expansion cards.

The three current methods used by internal hard drives are Parallel ATA (PATA) or EIDE( Integrated Drive Electronics) Serial ATA (SATA) SCSI.

External hard drives can connect to a computer by way external SATA (eSATA) SCSI FireWire USB variation of SCSI called Fibre Channel.

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Parallel ATA (PATA) or EIDE( Integrated Drive Electronics)Parallel ATA, also called the EIDE (Enhanced IDE) standard or, more loosely, the IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) standard, allows for one or two IDE connectors on a motherboard, each using a 40-pin data cable. These ribbon cables can accommodate one or two drives, as shown in Figure .

Serial ATA (SATA)Serial ATA interfaces are much faster than PATA interfaces and are used by all types of drives, including hard drives, CD, DVD, Blu-ray, and tape drives. A motherboard can have two, four, six, or more SATA connectors, which are much easier to configure and use than PATA connectors. SATA supports hot-swapping, also called hot-plugging. With hot-swapping, you can connect and disconnect a drive while the system is running. A SATA drive connects to one internal SATA connector on the motherboard by way of a SATA data cable. An internal SATA data cable can be up to 1 meter in length, has 7 pins, and is much narrower compared to the 40-pin parallel IDE cable

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In addition to internal SATA connectors, the motherboard or an expansion card can provide external SATA (eSATA) ports for external drives (see Figure 8-13). External SATA (eSATA) is up to six times faster than USB or FireWire.

External SATA drives use a special external shielded serial ATA cable up to 2 meters long. When purchasing a SATA hard drive, keep in mind that the SATA standards for the drive and the motherboard need to match. If either the drive or the motherboard use a slower SATA standard than the other device, the system will run at the slower speed.

SCSI (Small Computer System Interface)Other than ATA, another interface standard for drives and other devices is SCSI, which is primarily used in servers. SCSI standards can be used by many internal and external devices, including hard drives, CD-ROM drives, DVD drives, printers, and scanners. SCSI stands for Small Computer System Interface, and is a standard for communication between a subsystem of peripheral devices and the system bus. The SCSI bus can support up to 7 or 15 devices, depending on the SCSI standard. SCSI devices tend to be faster, more expensive, and more difficult to install than similar ATA devices. Because they are more expensive and more difficult to install, they are mostly used in corporate settings and are seldom seen in the small office or used on home PCs.

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Installing hard disk

• When a hard drive is first installed in a system, Windows initializes the drive and identifies it as a basic disk.

• A basic disk is a single hard drive that works independently of other hard drives.• The initializing process writes a Master Boot Record (MBR) to the drive.

(MBR is the first sector at the beginning of a hard drive (512 bytes).)– It contains two items:

1. The master boot program (446 bytes), which loads the OS boot program stored in the OS boot record. (This program begins the process of loading the OS.)

2. The partition table, which contains the description, location, and size of each partition on the drive.

Partitioning hard disk

• A partition is a division of a hard drive. Windows can track up to four partitions on a drive and keeps this tracking information in a partition table that is written in the first 512-byte sector of the drive.

• create a partition on the drive in a process called high-level formatting or operating system formatting.• During this process, you specify the size of the partition and what file system it will use.• A file system is the overall structure an OS uses to name, store, and organize files on a drive.

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• In a file system, a cluster is the smallest unit of space on a disk for storing a file and is made up of one or more sectors. A file system tracks how these clusters are used for each file stored on the disk.

• A partition can be a primary partition or an extended partition.• A drive can have one, two, or three primary partitions, also called volumes.• One of these primary partitions can be designated the active partition, which is the partition that startup

BIOS turns to for an OS to load. • One of the four partitions on a drive can be an extended partition which can hold one or more logical

drives.(An extended partition can be divided into one or more logical drives. ) • A logical drive is sometimes called a logical partition.• Partitions are created during the Windows installation, by using the Disk • Primary and extended partitions can be created on a hard drive when the drive is first installed, when an

OS is first installed, or after an existing partition becomes corrupted.• When an OS is first installed, the installation process partitions and formats the drive, if necessary.

• After Windows is installed, you can use the Disk Management tool to view and manage partitions on a drive.

Hard drive with four partitions

File System

• A file system is used to manage files and folders on the volume or logical drive. • A cluster is a group of sectors used to hold a file, and the number of sectors in a cluster is determined by

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• A file is stored in one or more clusters. The last cluster might have sectors that go unused, and this wasted space is called slack.

• File systems supported by Windows include NTFS, FAT32, and exFAT. • Installing a file system on a volume or logical drive is called formatting.• Formatting can be done using Disk Management, Windows Explorer, or the Format command.

FAT File system(file allocation table)

FAT is by far the most simplistic of the file systems supported by Windows. The FAT file system is characterized by the file allocation table (FAT), which is really a table(that tracks how space on a disk is used to store files) that resides at the very "top" of the volume. To protect the volume, two copies of the FAT are kept in case one becomes damaged. In addition, the FAT tables and the root directory must be stored in a fixed location so that the system's boot files can be correctly located. A disk formatted with FAT is allocated in clusters, whose size are determined by the size of the volume. When a file is created, an entry is created in the directory and the first cluster number containing data is established. This entry in the FAT table either indicates that this is the last cluster of the file, or points to the next cluster. Updating the FAT table is very important as well as time consuming. If the FAT table is not regularly updated, it can lead to data loss. It is time consuming because the disk read heads must be repositioned to the drive's logical track zero each time the FAT table is updated.

There is no organization to the FAT directory structure, and files are given the first open location on the drive. In addition, FAT supports only read-only, hidden, system, and archive file attributes.

FAT Naming Convention

FAT uses the traditional file naming convention and all filenames must be created with the ASCII character set. The name of a file can be up to eight characters long, then a period (.) separator, and up to a three character extension. The name must start with either a letter or number and can contain any characters except for the following: . " / \ [ ] : ; | = ,If any of these characters are used, unexpected results may occur.

The following names are reserved:

CON, AUX, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, PRN, NUL

Advantages of FAT

It is not possible to perform an undelete under Windows on any of the supported file systems. Undelete utilities try to directly access the hardware, which cannot be done under Windows . However, if the file was located on a FAT partition, and the system is restarted under MS-DOS, the file can be undeleted. The FAT file system is best for drives and/or partitions under approximately 200 MB, because FAT starts out with very little overhead.

Disadvantages of FAT

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Preferably, when using drives or partitions of over 200 MB the FAT file system should not be used. This is because as the size of the volume increases, performance with FAT will quickly decrease. It is not possible to set permissions on files that are FAT partitions. FAT partitions are limited in size to a maximum of 4 Gigabytes (GB) under Windows and 2 GB in MS-DOS.

NTFS (New Technology file system)

NTFS is the file system that the Windows NT operating system uses for storing and retrieving files on a hard disk.NTFS is designed to provide greater security and to support more storage capacity than the FAT32 file system.NTFS offers a number of improvements over FAT in terms of performance, extendibility, and security. There are no special locations on the disk, such as FAT tables .

Features of NTFS include:

cluster, not just a governing table (as FAT ) Support for very large files (up to 2 to the 64th power or approximately 16 billion bytes in size) An access control list (ACL) that lets a server administrator control who can access specific files Integrated file compression Support for names based on Unicode Support for long file names Data security on both removable and fixed disks

Advantages of NTFS

NTFS is best for use on volumes of about 400 MB or more. This is because performance does not degrade under NTFS, as it does under FAT, with larger volume sizes. The recoverability designed into NTFS is such that a user should never have to run any sort of disk repair utility on an NTFS partition.

Disadvantages of NTFS

It is not recommended to use NTFS on a volume that is smaller than approximately 400 MB, because of the amount of space overhead involved in NTFS. This space overhead is in the form of NTFS system files that typically use at least 4 MB of drive space on a 100 MB partition. Currently, there is no file encryption built into NTFS. Therefore, someone can boot under MS-DOS, or another operating system, and use a low-level disk editing utility to view data stored on an NTFS volume. It is not possible to format a floppy disk with the NTFS file system; Windows NT formats all floppy disks with the FAT file system because the overhead involved in NTFS will not fit onto a floppy disk.

NTFS Naming ConventionsFile and directory names can be up to 255 characters long, including any extensions. Names preserve case, but are not case sensitive. NTFS makes no distinction of filenames based on case. Names can contain any characters except for the following: ? " / \ < > * | :

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Currently, from the command line, you can only create file names of up to 253 characters.

So, filename and file extension characters can be the letters a through z, the numbers 0 through 9, and the following characters:

_ ^ $ ! # % & – { } ( ) @ ' `

Formatting storage devices

• Before a primary partition or volume can be used, it must be formatted using a file system.

• For the extended partition, each logical drive must be formatted with a file system.

• Three choices for a file system:

– Windows XP offers the FAT32 or the NTFS file system.

Disk management

• To manage Hard Drivess(Initializing, Partitioning, Formatting)• To mount a drive• To troubleshoot problems with a hard drive

1. Open Windows 7 Disk Management from the Computer Management utility. To open Disk Management, Windows XP, right-click My Computer, and select Manage from the

shortcut menu. In the Computer Management window, click Disk Management. (Alternately, you can enter

diskmgmt.msc in the Start Search box.)

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2. With Disk Management open, locate the drive you want to format from the list at the top.If you don't see the drive you want to format listed or Initialize Disk window appear, it most likely means that the hard drive has not yet been partitioned, something you must do before you format the hard drive.• Right-click the disk and select Initialize Disk from the shortcut menu

To create a new volume on a drive, right-click in the unallocated space select New Simple Volume from the shortcut menu follow the directions on-screen to select the size of the volume assign a drive letter and name to the volume, and select the file system. In Windows XP, the size of a partition or volume cannot be changed unless you use third-party software. You can use Disk Management to delete a partition. To do so, right-click the partition and select Delete

Partition from the shortcut menu

3. Once located, right-click on the drive and choose Format.... A "Format [drive letter]:" window should appear.

Warning: Obviously it's very, very important to choose the correct drive to format in Windows 7:(Formatting the C drive, or whatever letter happens to identify the partition that Windows 7 is installed on, can not be done from Disk Management or from anywhere else in Windows 7 )

If you're formatting a drive that has data on it, double-check that it's the correct drive by looking at the drive letter and then checking in Windows Explorer that it is in fact the correct drive.

If you're formatting a new drive, the drive letter assigned should be unfamiliar to you and the File System will probably be listed as RAW.

In the Volume label: textbox, either give a name to the drive or leave the name as is. If this is a new drive, Windows 7 will assign the volume label New Volume.

For File system: choose NTFS unless you have a specific need to choose another file system.

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NTFS is always the best file system option to use in Windows 7 unless you have a specific need to choose FAT32. Other FAT file systems are only available as options on drives 2GB and smaller.

Set the Allocation unit size: set to Default unless there's a specific reason to customize it. It's not common to set a custom allocation unit size when formatting a hard drive in Windows 7.

Windows 7 might suggest that you Perform a quick format by checking this option by default but I you can recommend unchecking the box so a standard format is done.

In a standard format, each sector on the hard drive is checked for errors. A quick format skips the bad sector search. A quick format will format the hard drive considerably faster but the standard format proves that the hard drive is physically working as it should and is a safe place for your data.

The Enable file and folder compression option is probably unchecked by default and I recommend keeping it that way.File and folder compression isn't usually necessary in today's world of incredibly large hard drives but feel free to enable it if you think you might use the feature.

Click OK at the bottom of the window.

Click OK to the "Formatting this volume will erase all data on it. Back up any data you want to to keep before formatting. Do you want to continue?" message.

The hard drive format will begin.

The format is complete when the Status changes to Healthy, which will happen a few seconds after the format counter reaches 100%.Windows 7 does not otherwise notify you that the drive format is complete.

That's it! You've just formatted a hard drive in Windows 7 and you can now use the new drive to store files, install programs, backup data... whatever you want.

Note: If you created multiple partitions on this physical hard drive, you can now return to Step 3 and repeat these steps, formatting the additional drive(s).

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How to mount a drive• A mounted drive is a volume that can be accessed by way of a folder on another volume so that the

folder has more available space.

• A mounted drive is useful in these sample situations:

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You need to expand the space on a drive, such as when drive C is too small and you want to enhance that space using space on another volume

you want to put all user data on another volume or hard drive other than the Windows volume (the C:\Users folder is the mount point in this situation);

you have run out of drive letters A through Z.

• Make sure the volume that is to host the mounted drive uses the NTFS file system. The folder on this volume, called the mount point, must be empty. Use Windows Explorer to create a new folder or empty an existing folder. In our example, we are mounting a drive to the C:\Data folder.

• Open Disk Management. Right-click in the unallocated space of Disk 1 (the second hard drive) and select New Simple Volume from the shortcut menu

• The New Simple Volume Wizard launches. Click Next.• On the next window , specify the amount of unallocated space you want to devote to the volume and

click Next.

• On the next window , select Mount in the following empty NTFS folder. Then click Browse to locate the C:\Data folder or enter the path to the folder. Click Next to continue.

• The next window gives you choices for the Allocation unit size (this is the cluster size). It’s best to leave the size at the Default value. You can also enter a volume label if you like. Click Next to continue.

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• The wizard reports your decisions on the final window. Click Finish to create the mounted drive. The status of the drive is reported as Formatting until the format is complete.

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• Close the Disk Management window and open Windows Explorer. Right click the C:\Data folder and select Properties from the shortcut menu. The Properties box opens and shows that the folder Type is a Mounted Volume. When you click Properties in the properties box, you can see that the capacity of the folder, which is the size of the mounted volume less overhead.

In the above example, it’s interesting to note that drive C still reports a capacity of 353 GB, while the C:\Data folder reports a capacity of 683 GB. The inside appears bigger than the outside! You can think of a mount point, such as C:\Data, as a shortcut to the second drive. If you look closely at the left window, you can see the shortcut icon beside the \Data folder.In the previous example, the C:\Data folder was empty. If we had wanted to mount the drive in a folder that had data in it, such as the C:\Users folder, we would first have had to move the contents of this folder to another location. Then, after the drive was mounted, we could copy the contents back to the C:\Users folder, which would now be greatly expanded and physically located on a different volume.

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