How to manage Disk and Volumes in windows 10

 Managing and Troubleshooting Disks and Volumes

Hard disks are fixed storage devices that are connected to a computer by Integrated Device Electronics (IDE) or Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) controllers. Portalble hard disks are also available, and they can be connected with universal serial bus (USB) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 1394 (also known as FireWire) interfaces. Windows typically treats portable hard disks, CD-ROM drives, and DVDs as removable storage devices.


Windows  supports two types of hard disk storage on desktop computers: basic disks and dynamic disks. (You cannot use dynamic disks on portable computers.)

How to Manage Hard Disks by Using the Disk Management Tool

You will use the Disk Management tool to create and manage volumes on fixed and removable disks. You access Disk Management from within the Computer Management window, using the Administrative Tools icon in Control Panel or by right-clicking My Computer and selecting Manage.
Working with Basic Disks

You make unallocated space on basic disks available to the operating system by creating a partition and then formatting that partition with the file system of your choice.

How to Create a Primary Partition To create a primary partition, follow these steps:

  Click the Start button on the taskbar to open the Start menu in Windows 10 and go to Windows Administrative Tools in the All Apps view In the Administrative Tools menu, double-click Computer Management. You can also open Computer Management by right clicking the My Computer icon on the desktop or Start menu, and then clicking Manage.

In the Computer Management window, expand the Storage container, and then click Disk Management.

In Disk Management, right-click the unallocated space in which you want to create the primary partition, and then select New Partition. 

On the Welcome page for the New Partition Wizard, Click Next. On the Select Partition Type page, C1ick Primary Partition and click Next 

On the Specify Partition Size page, enter the amount of disk space in megabytes (MB) that you want to use for this partition, and then click Next.
On the Assign Drive Letter Or Path page, choose an available drive letter or a path for 2 volume mount point, and then dick Next
On the Format Partition page, click Format This Partition, select a File system. and then assign a volume label. Click Next.
On the Completion page, click Finish to create and format the partition Be patient; Windows must perform a number of functions, Which can take several  minutes.

How to Create Extended Partitions

 To create an extended partition, follow these Steps:

1. In Disk Management, right-click the unallocated space in which you want to create the extended partition and select New Partition.

2. On the Welcome page for the Create Partition Wizard, click Next. 3. On the Select Partition Type page, click Extended Partition, and then click Next.

4. On the Specify Partition Size page, enter the amount of disk space in MB that you want to use for this partition, and then click Next.

5. On the Completion page, click Finish to create the extended partition.

You are not prompted to assign a drive letter or to format an extended partition because the extended partition serves only as a shell to contain logical drives. You will format and assign drive letters to logical drives.

How to Create Logical Drives 

To create a logical drive inside an extended partition, follow these steps:

1. In Disk Management, right-Click the free space in the extended partition in which you want to create the logical drive, and then click New Logical Drive.

2. On the Welcome page for the Create Partition Wizard, click Next. 3. On the Select Partition Type page, click Logical Drive, and then click Next.

4. On the Specify Partition Size page, enter the amount of disk space in MB that you want to use for this logical drive, and then click Next.

5. On the Assign Drive Letter Or Path page, choose an available drive letter, and then click Next.

6.On the Format Partition page, click Format This Partition, select a file system, and then assign a volume label. Click Next.

7‘ On the completion page, click Finish to create and format the logical drive.

Basic Disks

Basic disks are the traditional type of storage that is available in earlier versions of Microsoft Windows. Basic disks are also the default storage type in Windows  so all hard disks begin as basic disks. Windows recognizes all disks as basic by default, including all new installations and upgrades from previous versions of Windows. To Use a dynamic disk, you must convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk.

On a basic disk, you must create one or more partitions (also called basic volumes). You must configure a basic disk with at least one partition. In fact, most computers that You will encounter have a single hard disk with one partition that takes up all the physical space on the disk. You can also divide a hard disk into multiple partitions for the purpose of organizing file storage or supporting multiple operating systems on a single computer. You can create the following three types of partitions on a basic hard disk

Primary You can configure up to four primary partitions on a computer runnm8 a Windows operating system (three partitions if you also have an extended partition on the disk). You can configure any primary partition as the active (or boot. able) drive, but only one primary partition is active at a time. Other primary dme5 are typically hidden from the operating system and are not assigned a drive letter.

Extended An extended partition provides a way to exceed the four primary partition limit. You cannot format an extended partition with any file system. Rather, extended partitions serve as a shell in which you can create any number of logical partitions.

Logical You can create any number of logical partitions inside an extended partition. Logical partitions are normally used for organizing files. All logical partition are visible, no matter which operating system is started.

Windows stores partition information for basic disks in the partition table, which is not part of any operating system (it is an area of the drive that is accessible by all operating systems). Other configuration options, such as drive letter assignments, are controlled by the operating system and are stored in the Windows Registry.

Dynamic Disks

Windows  supports dynamic disks (except on portable computers). Dynamic disks offer several advantages over basic disks:

• You can divide a dynamic disk into many volumes. The basic disk concept of primary and extended partitions does not exist when using dynamic disks.

• Windows stores configuration information for dynamic disks entirely on the disk. If there are multiple dynamic disks, Windows replicates information to all other disks so that each disk has a copy of the configuration information» This information is stored in the last 1 MB of the disk.

• You can extend dynamic volumes by using contiguous or noncontiguou disk space. Dynamic volumes can also be made up of areas of disk space on more than one disk

Windows supports the following types of dynamic volumes

simple volume A simple volume can contain disk space from a single disk and can be extended if necessary.

spanned volume A spanned volume can contain disk space from 2 or more (up to a maximum of 32) disks. The amount of disk space from each disk can vary. You will most often use spanned volumes when a simple volume is running low on disk space and you need to extend the volume by using space on another hard disk. You can continue to extend spanned volumes to include areas from additional hard disks as necessary. When Windows writes data to a spanned volume, it writes data to the area on the first disk until the area is filled, and then writes data to the area on the second disk, and so on. There is no fault tolerance in spanned volumes. If any of the disks containing the spanned volume fail, you lose all data in the entire spanned volume.

Striped volume A striped volume can contain disk space from 2 or more (up to a maximum of 32) disks. Unlike spanned volumes, striped volumes require that you use an identical amount of disk space from each disk. When Windows writes data to a striped volume, it divides the data into 64 KB chunks and writes to the disks in a fixed order. Thus, Windows will split a 128 KB file into two 64 KB chunks, and then stores each chunk on a separate disk. Striped volumes provide increased performance because it is faster to read or write two smaller pieces of a file on two drives than to read or write the entire file on a single drive. However, you cannot extend striped volumes, and they provide no fault tolerance. If any of the disks that contain the striped volume fail, you lose all data on the volume. Striped volumes are also referred to as RAID-O.

  Windows  does not support fault-tolerant disk configurations. Spanned volumes simply allow you to use different amounts of disk space from multiple hard disks in a single volume. Striped volumes allow you use an identical amount of disk space from multiple hard disks. The advantage of using striped volumes is that Windows can write information to the disk more quickly.


Basic disks are generally suffticient for a computer with a single hard disk.There are really two situations in which you might want to use a dynamic disk.

The first is if you need to extend a volume to contain unallocated disk space that contiguous (for example, if you have extra free space on the same disk, but not directly adjacent to the volume you need to extend, or if you have free space on another disk). The second reason is if you want to configure a striped volume to increase read/write speed.

If you plan to use multiple operating systems on the same computer, your choice of disk types will be limited by the operating systems you want to install.  Although multibooting is not used as much as it used to be, it continues to useful feature if you are using Windows  but occasionally need to replicate older computing environments. (You will probably find an alternate solution as Microsoft Virtual PC more efficient and easy to configure.) If you decide to multibooting, you are limited in the following ways:

•   If you need to install Windows along with any operating systtem other than Windows  you must use a basic disk. should create a primary disk partition for each operating system.

•   If you have a single dynamic disk, you can install only one operating system

Formatting Volumes

Formatting a basic or dynamic volume with a file system prepares the volume to accept data. Unformatted volumes contain no file system and are not accessible by using Windows Explorer or any other application.

You can format volumes in the following ways:

By using Disk Management and formatting the new volume as it is being created

By using Disk Management, right-clicking an existing volume, and then selecting Format 

By using Windows Explorer, right-clicking the drive letter, and then selecting Format

By using a command prompt, using the Formatexe command, and selecting the appropriate parameters

If you format an existing volume that contains data, all data is lost. Windows  itself by preventing you from formatting the system and boot partition for the operating system by using any of the built-in Windows utilities.

Formatting options,  include the following:

Volume Label The character name for a volume of up to 11 characters. This is the name that is displayed in Disk Management and Windows Explorer. You should choose a label that describes the type of information that is stored on the volume. Such as System for the volume that contains the operating system or Documents for a volume that contains user documents.

File System Allows you choose from the FAT (for FAT16), FAT32, or NTFS file systems 
Allocation Unit Size Allows you change the default cluster size for any of the file systems. Microsoft recommends leaving this value at its default setting.

Perform A Quick Format Specifies that you want to format the drive without having Windows perform an exhaustive scan of the drive to check for bad sectors. Select this option only if you have previously performed a full format and are certain that the disk is not damaged.

Enable File And Folder Compression Specifies that all files placed on the disk W1“ be compressed by default Compression is always available on an NTFS volume, and you can enable or disable it at any time through the properties of the files and folders on the volume. File And Folder Compression is available only when you format a volume with NTFS. 

 Drive Letters

When you create a basic or dynamic volume, you assign it a drive letter, such as C or D. The drive letter is used to access the volume through Windows Explorer and other applications. CD-ROM and DVD drives, removable drives, and tape devices are also assigned drive letters.

To change the currently assigned drive letter for a volume, right-click the volume in Disk Management, select Change Drive Letter And Paths from the Action menu, and then click Change. Note that you can change a volume only to a drive letter that is not already being used.

  Windows does not allow you to modify the drive letter for the system and boot partitions.

Volume Mount Points

Windows also allows you to mount a volume by using a path instead of assign”, a drive letter. For example. you could create a folder named C:Files. You could the assign the C:Files path to a new volume labeled Files. When you open the C: M folder within Windows Explorer, you would actually see the information that is stored on the Files volume. This type of volume is referred to as a mounted volume, and “It folder that the mounted volume is attached to is referred to as a volume mount point You can create multiple volume mount points for a single volume. You can dismount. and move a mounted volume to another volume mount point if necessary.

Mounted volumes provide a method of extending the perceived available space on an existing volume without extending the volume’s actual size. Technically, a mounted Volume is a separate volume, but in the user’s eyes it appears to be an extension of an existing volume. Therefore, you can use mounted volumes to increase the amount of disk space that is available on a basic volume to include disk space on another hard disk (remember that you cannot actually extend a basic volume to include space on another disk). Also, mounted volumes provide a method for managing multiple vol. umes of information from the same drive letter.

Volume mount points are supported on NTFS volumes only. The volume that is being mounted can be formatted with any supported file system.

To add a mounted volume to an existing volume

follow these steps: 1. In Windows Explorer, create a folder on an NTFS volume to serve as the volume mount point.

2. In Disk Management, locate the volume for which you want to modify the drive letter or path information.

3. Right-ciick the volume and select Change Drive Letter And Path from the Action menu.

4. In the Change Drive Letter And Paths For New Volume dialog box, click Add to create a new mounted volume.

5. In the Add Drive Letter Or Path dialog box, click Mount In The Following Empty N'I’FS Folder and enter the path to the volume mount point
6. Click OK.

Mounted volume paths have a different icon in Windows Explorer, and are represented by the <JUNCTION> identifier when viewed at a command prompt, as shown in Figure 10-8.
The following list contains some additional information about drive letters and paths:

• You cannot assign multiple drive letters to a single volume.

• You cannot assign the same drive letter to multiple volumes on the same computer.

• You can mount a volume into multiple paths simultaneously.

• A volume can exist without a drive letter or mount path assigned; however, the volume will not be accessible by applications.

How to Convert a Basic Disk to a Dynamic Disk

All disks are basic disks by default. When you need to take advantage of the functionally that dynamic disks provide, you must convert the basic disks to dynamic disks.You can convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk without losing existing data.

For the conversion to be successful, there must be at least 1 MB of free unpartitioned space available on the basic disk. This 1 MB is necessary to store the dynamic disk database, which tracks the configuration of all dynamic disks in the computer. If Wmdows  created the existing partitions, it will have automatically reserved the 1 MB of space required for the conversion. If another operating system or a third. party utility program created the partitions prior to upgrading, there is a chance that no free space is available. In that case, you will likely have to repartition the drive so that 1 MB of space is reserved as blank space.

During the conversion, all primary and extended partitions become simple dynamic volumes, and the disk Will join the local disk group and receive a copy of the dynamic disk database.

 To convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, follow these steps:

1. In Disk Management, right-click the basic disk that you want to convert and select Convert To Dynamic Disk, . Make sure that you right-cljck the actual disk (to the left of the partitions Where the Disk number is located), not one of the partitions on the disk.
  2. In the Convert To Dynamic Disk box dialog box, verify the disks that you want convert, and then click OK.

 3. In the Disks To Convert dialog box, click Convert, and then click Yes to confirm If you are warned that the file system must be dismounted. click Yes again.
Windows returns you to the Disk Management tool and begins the conversion

If the disk contains the system or boot volume or any part of the paging me. you wt]! 3 nave to restart the computer to complete the conversion process.

If You right-click the disk and do not see the Convert To Dynamic Disk option, one of the following conditions might exist:

• The disk has already been converted to dynamic.

• You have right-clicked a volume instead of the disk. I The disk is in a portable computer. Portable computers do not support dynamic disks.

• There is not 1 MB of available space at the end of the disk to hold the dynamic disk database.

• The disk is a removable disk, such as a Zip disk or a detachable USB disk device. Dynamic disks are not supported on removable disks.

• The sector size on the disk is larger than 512 bytes. Windows  supports dynamic disks only on disks with a sector size of 512 bytes. The vast majority of hard disks use this sector size.

How to Revert from a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk

To make a dynamic disk locally accessible by an operating system other than Windows 10,you must convert the dynamic disk back to a basic disk. Data is not preserved when reverting to a basic disk  the downgrade process requires that all data be removed from the disk.

Whether a disk is dynamic or basic has no effect on whether clients running any operatlng system can connect to shared folders on that disk remotely over the network. Computers running previous versions of Windows cannot locally access a dynamic disk when you install the disk into the computer.

To revert from a dynamic disk back to a basic disk, follow these steps:

1. Back up all files and folders on the entire disk.

2. In Disk Management, delete all the volumes from the disk.

3. Right-click the dynamic disk you want to convert and select Convert To Basic Disk.

4. Follow the on-screen instructions.

5. Create an appropriate partition scheme on the disk and format the newly created drives.

6. Restore data as necessary.

  When you convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, data on the disk is preserved. When you revert a dynamic disk to a basic disk. data on the disk is lost.

How to Create a Simple Dynamic Volume

A simple dynamic volume contains space on a single disk. Although similar to a primary basic volume, there are no limits to how many simple volumes you can create on a single disk. To create a simple volume, follow these steps:

1. In Disk Management, right-click the unallocated space on which you want to Cfe‘ ate the simple volume, and then select New Volume.

2. On the New Volume Wizard welcome page, click Next.

3. On the Select Volume Type page, click Simple, and then click Next. 4. On the Select Disks page, enter the desired size in MB, and then click Next.
5. On the Assign A Dnve Letter Or Path page, select a drive letter or enter a path for a mounted volume, and then click Next.

6. On the Format Volume page, select the file system and enter a volume label. Click‘ Next.

7. On the Completion page, click Finish to create the volume.

How to Create a Striped Dynamic Volume

Striped volumes can contain from 2 to 32 disks. Data is written to and read from multiple disks simultaneously, increasing disk performance. Data is written (striped) in 64 KB blocks. Striped volumes do not provide any fault tolerance. If one or more of the disks in a striped volume fails, all data on the entire volume is lost. Striped volumes are also known as RAID 0. To create a striped volume, complete the following steps:

  In Disk Management, right-click the unallocated space on one of the disks on which you want to create the striped volume, and then select New Volume. . On the New Volume Wizard welcome page, click Next.

On the Select Volume Type page, click Striped, and then click Next. Note that you must have multiple dynamic disks with unallocated space for Striped to be an option.

On the Select Disks page, select the disks to be included in the striped volume. Adjust the size of the striped volume accordingly, and then click Next.

On the Assign Drive Letter Or Path page, select a drive letter or enter a path for a mounted volume, and then click Next.

On the Format Volume page, select the file system and enter a volume label. Click Next.

On the Completion page, click Finish to create the volume.

The amount of disk space that is consumed on each disk in the striped volume must be equal. The disk with the smallest amount of available space limits the maximum amount of space available on a striped volume. For example, assume that you have the following drive configuration on your computer:

•  Disk O-No space available 
• Disk 1-2 GB available  
• Disk 2-2 GB available 
• Disk 3-1 GB available

If you attempt to create a striped volume with Disks 1, 2, and 3. the maximum vol“ size that you can create is 3 GB. Because Disk 3 has only 1 GB of space available. Wu are limited to using only 1 GB from each of the disks in the set. However, if you create a striped volume using only Disks 1 and 2, the maximum volume size you can Create is 4 GB because both disks have 2 GB of available space.

Extending Volumes

Windows supports extending volumes on both basic and dynam1c disks. You extend volumes on basic disks by using the Diskpart command-line Utility

You can extend volumes on dynamic disks by using either the Disk Management utility or the Diskpart command-line utility.

Extending Volumes on Basic Disks You can extend primary partitions and logical drives on basic disks if the following conditions are met:

• The volume to be extended is formatted with the NTFS file system.

• The volume is extended into contiguous unallocated space (adjacent free space) that follows the existing volume (as opposed to coming before it).

• The volume is extended on the same hard disk. Volumes on basic disks cannoxbe extended to include disk space on another hard disk.

• The volume is not the system or boot volume. The system or boot volumes cannot be extended.

You extend volumes by running the Diskpart utility from the command line, selecting the appropriate volume, and then executing the following command:

extend [size=n] [noerr]

Extending Volumes on Dynamic Disks You can extend a simple volume as long as It has been formatted with NTFS. You do this by attaching additional unallocated space from the same disk, or from a different disk, to an existing simple volume. Disk space that is used to extend a simple volume does not have to be contiguous. 1f the additional space comes from a different disk, the volume becomes a spanned volume Spanned volumes can contain disk space from 2 to 32 disks.

1f the volume is not formatted with NTFS, you must convert the volume to N'ITS hem you can extend it.
You extend simple volumes by using Disk Management or the Diskpanrtcommand-llne utility .Perform extensions of simple volumes with Diskpart the same way that you my form extensions of basic volumes.

To extend a simple volume using Disk Management, follow these steps: 

1, In Disk Management, right-click the simple volume that you want to extend, and then click Extend Volume. 2. On the Extend Volume Wizard welcome page, click Next.

3, On the Select Disks page, select the disk(s) that contain free space that you want to attach to this volume, enter the amount of space for each disk, and then click

Next. 4. On the Completion page, click Finish to extend the volume.


You are not prompted for any information concerning drive lettering or formatting because the added space assumes the same properties as the existing volume.

Moving Disks to Another Computer

1f a computer fails but the hard disks are still functional. you can install the disks into another computer to ensure that the data is still accessible. However, you need to consider the following issues that are associated with moving disks:

• You cannot move dynamic disks to computers runmng  operating system. that do not support dynamic disks. To move a disk to these operating ayatems, you must first convert it to a basic disk

• When moving spanned or striped volumes, move all disks that are associated with the volume at the same time. If one disk is missing from a spanned or spanned or striped volume none of the data on the entire volume is accessible.

After moving disks. the disks appear in Disk Management on the new computer 815x disks are immediately accessible. Dynamic disks initially appear as foreign disks and need to be imported before you can access them.

How to Import Foreign Disks

All dynamic disks on a computer running Windows are members of the same disk group. Each disk in the group contains the dynamic disk database for the entire group stored in the 1 MB reserved disk area at the end of the disk. When you move a dynamic disk from one computer to another, Windows displays it as a foreign  disk because it does not belong to the local disk group. You must import foreign disks. which merge the disk's information into the dynamic disk database on the new computer and place a copy of the database on the newly installed disk.

To import a foreign disk. follow these steps:

1. ln Disk Management. right-click the disk that is marked Foreign and click import Foreign Disks from the Action menu.

2, Select the disk group that you want to import. (There might be more than one foreign disk group if you have moved multiple disks from different computer» Into the same computer running Windows 

3, In the Foreign Disk Volumes dialog box, review the information to ensure that the condition for the volumes in the disk group being Imported is displayed as OK. If all the disks for a spanned or striped volume are not present. the condition is displayed as incomplete. You should resolve incomplete volume conditions before continuing with the import.

4, If you are satisfied with the information that Ls in the Foreign Disk Volume.» dialog box, click OK to import the disks.

Removing Disks from the Dynamic Disk Database

If you remove a dynamic disk from a computer running Windows  Disk Management displays the disk as either Offline or Missing because the dlisk’s configuration is still present in the dynamic disk database stored on the other disks on the computer. You can remove the missing disk’s configuration from the dynamic disk database by' right-clicking the disk and selecting Remove Disk.

How to Manage Disks Remotely By Using Computer Management

You can perform disk functions on a remote computer by connecting to that computer through Computer Management. To connect to a remote computer in Computer Management, follow these steps:

1. From the Start menu, right-click My Computer and select Manage to open the Computer Management window.

2. In the Computer Management window, right-click Computer Management and select Connect To Another Computer from the Action menu.

3. In the Select Computer dialog box, select the computer that you want to manage remotely, and then click OK. Computer Management displays the remote computer’s information, and you can manage the disks on that computer by using the Disk Management tool‘

How to Manage Disks from the Command Line by Using Diskpart

You can use the Diskpartexe command to execute disk-management tasks from a command prompt and to create scripts for automating those tasks that you need to perform frequently or on multiple computers.

Executing Diskpart from a command prompt opens the Diskpart command interpreter. When you are in the Diskpart command interpreter, the command prompt changes to DISKPART>. You can view available commands for the Diskpart tool by typing commands at the Diskpart command prompt, . Note that you type exit to close the Diskpart command interpreter and return to the normal command prompt.
One feature that is not available in Diskpart is the capability to format volumes. To format volumes, you must use the formatexe command from the standard command prompt.

How to Troubleshoot Disks and Volumes

Disk Management displays the status of each disk and volume. If you refer to Figure 10-], you notice that all disks are online and all volumes are showing the desired status of Healthy. Disk status types are as follows:

Online Displayed by basic and dynamic disks. The disk is accessible. No user action is required.

Online (Errors) Displayed by dynamic disks only. The disk is accessible, but input/ output (1/0) errors have been detected. If the I/O errors are intermittent, rightclick the disk and select Reactivate Disk. This normally returns the disk to Online status.

Offline Or Missing Displayed by dynamic disks only. This disk is not accessible. Attempt to rescan the disks on the computer by selecting Rescan Disks from the Action menu in Disk Management. If the scan is unsuccessful, look for a physical reason for the drive failure (cables disconnected, no power to disk, failed disk). If you must replace a failed drive, first delete all volumes on the disk, right-click the disk, and select Remove Disk.

Foreign Displayed by dynamic disks only. The disk has been moved to this computer from another computer. Right-click the disk, and then select Import Foreign Disk. If you do not want to keep the information on the disk, you can select Convert To Basic Disk, and all information on the disk will be lost.

Uunreadable Displayed by basic and dynamic disks. The disk is not accessible. Disk‘ might show this status while they are initializing. If a disk continues to show this status, the disk might have failed entirely. Restart the computer to determine whether the disk will become accessible. If it is a dynamic disk, attempt to repair the disk by right-clicking it and selecting Rescan Disks.

Unrecognized The disk is an unknown type, and Windows  cannot recognue it.

No Media This status is on drives with removable media, such as a CD-ROM drive, when the drive is empty.

Volume status types and the recommended action (if required) are as follows:

Healthy The volume is accessible and has no detected problems.

Healthy (At Risk) If the disk status is Online (Errors), the volumes will be accessible, but all volumes will display this status. Restoring the disk to Online will clear this status from the volume.

Initializing The volume is in the process of initializing. No action is required. After the initialization is complete, the volume should show a status of Healthy.

Removable Media

Windows  built-in support for both CD-ROM and DVD-ROM devices. Windows also supports a number of other removable media types, such as tape drives and memory storage. This section covers the monitoring and troubleshooting of removable media.

CD-ROM and DVD Devices

Most CD-ROM and DVD-ROM devices are Plug and Play-compliant and therefore require little configuration. To view the status and configuration of these types of devices, access the device’s Properties dialog box through Device Manager. The General tab of the device’s Properties dialog box indicates whether the device is functioning properly within Windows.

If Device Manager indicates that the device is installed and functioning, yet the device does not appear to be working properly, there might be a physical problem With the device installation, or the device itself might be faulty. If the disk tray does not eject properly, or if the power/usage light-emitting diode (LED) indicators are not illuminated, open the computer and verify that all connections have been properly established.

If a CD or DVD device appears to read data correctly but does not play back audio, there is most likely a device driver problem, or additional required components are not Currently configured. Always verify that the device is listed in the Windows Catalog

Also, make sure that the latest version of the device driver and associated software it installed.
To troubleshoot an audio playback problem, take the following additional steps

• Verify that the sound card is properly configured and functional.

• Verify that the speakers are plugged in and turned on. I Verify that the sound has not been muted. I

• Verify that the audio cables connecting the CD/DVD to the sound card are pm erly connected.

• Make sure that the CD is clean.

If the CD device supports it, you can enable the digital CD playback feature in the drive’s Properties dialog box in Device Manager. On the Properties tab, select the Enable Digital CD Audio For This CD-ROM Device Check box. Digital CD playback requires that CD devices support digital audio extraction (DAE), Which older devices might not support. When digital CD playback is enabled, the CD-ROM drive does nor have to be connected to the sound card, and audio output from the headphone jack on the CD-ROM drive is disabled.

Removable Storage Media

Removable storage media consist of devices such as disks, tape, and optical media, which are stored either online in the form of information libraries or offline on a shelf or in a file drawer. These media are used primarily for backup of applications and data. They are also used to archive data that is not accessed frequently.

Previous versions of Windows did not provide strong support for removable devices. Each application that required access to a removable device needed a custom solution for accessing and managing removable storage media. Windows 10 centralizes the management of these devices with Removable Storage technology. Removable Storage allows the operating system to manage removable media centrally, and applications gain access to removable devices through the Removable Storage interface. Devices with drivers that have been written to take advantage of Removable Storage are easily accessible and sharable by both the operating system and applications.

Removable Storage uses the concept of media pools to organize removable media Media pools group media by usage, allow media to be shared by multiple applications, control media access, and provide for tracking of media usage. Other concepts of removable storage include the following:

Media units The actual devices that store information, such as a CD-ROM. tape cartridge, or removable disk.

Media libraries Encompass both online libraries and offline media physical ions Online libraries, which include robotic libraries and stand alone drives,  data-storage devices that provide a method of reading and writing to media when necessary. Offline media physical locations are holding places for media units that are cataloged by Removable Storage, but are not currently immediately available through an online library.

Work queues Hold library requests until resources become available. For example. a robotic tape library has a fixed number of tape drives to access media. A request submitted to the library is held in a work queue until a tape drive becomes avail' able and the requested tape is mounted.

operator (administrator) requests Hold requests for offline media. The operator must make the media available before processing can continue. Other situations that generate operator requests include the failure of a device or a device needing to be cleaned when no cleaner cartridge is available. After a request is satisfied, the administrator must inform Removable Storage so that processing can continue.

  Removable storage devices can contain primary partitions only, and those partitions cannot be marked as active.

The Removable Storage Utility

You perform initial installation, configuration, and troubleshooting of removable storage devices by using the Add Hardware Wizard and Device Manager. After being recognized by the operating system, removable storage devices are available for management through the Removable Storage utility. Access Removable Storage by expanding the Storage node in the Computer Management window.

By using the Removable Storage utility, you can insert and eject removable media, control access to media, and manage the use of media by applications. Systems with standard, stand-alone, removable devices (such as a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, Zip drive, or tape drive) do not require management and configuration by using Removable Storage. Removable Storage is required for computers with more complex configurations, which can include tape or optical disk libraries, especially if multiple applications will access those devices. You should always consult the documentation for the removable device to determine how it is best managed.

See Also Removable Storage devices that require management through the Remote Storage utility are most likely attached to Windows servers in a network environment. Further discussion of Removable Storage management is beyond the scope of this text. For more information, see http://www.microsoft.com and search for “Removable Storage.