Disk Management is a system utility for managing hard disks and the volumes or partitions that they contain. With Disk Management, you can initialize disks, create volumes, and format volumes with the FAT, FAT32, or NTFS file systems. Disk Management enables you to perform most disk-related tasks without restarting the system or interrupting users. Most configuration changes take effect immediately.
In this version of Windows, Disk Management provides the same features you may already be familiar with from earlier versions, but also adds some new features:
- Simpler partition creation. When you
right-click a volume, you can choose whether to create a basic,
spanned, or striped partition directly from the menu.
- Disk conversion options. When you add
more than four partitions to a basic disk, you are prompted to
convert the disk to dynamic or to the GUID partition table (GPT)
partition style.
- Extend and shrink partitions. You can
extend and shrink partitions directly from the Windows
interface.
Additional resources
- Checklist: Add a New
Disk
- Manage Disks
- Manage Basic
Volumes
- Manage Dynamic
Volumes
- Create a Striped
Volume
- Troubleshooting Disk
Management
- Resources for Disk
Management
- For more in-depth information about Disk
Management, including best practices and concepts, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=64097.