Chapter 10 Implementing Hard Drives

True or False: Linux calls a drive structure created with a dynamic disk a volume.

False: Microsoft calls a drive structure created with a dynamic disk a volume.

Formatting

Magnetically mapping a disk to provide a structure for storing data; can be done to any type of disk, including a floppy disk, hard disk, or other type of removable disk.

Active Partition

On a hard drive, primary partition that contains an operating system.

file system

Scheme that directs how an OS stores and retrieves data on and off a drive; FAT32 and NTFS are both file systems. Used interchangeably with the term "data structure." (See also data structure.)

Logical drives

Sections of an extended partition on a hard drive that are formatted and (usually) assigned a drive letter, each of which is presented to the user as if it were a separate drive.

Disk Management

Snap-in available with the Microsoft Management Console that enables techs to configure the various disks installed in a system; available in the Computer Management Administrative Tool.

Dynamic Disks

Special feature of Windows that enables users to span a single volume across two or more disks. Dynamic disks do not have partitions; they have volumes. Dynamic disks can be striped, mirrored, and striped or mirrored with parity.

dynamic disk

Special feature of Windows that enables users to span a single volume across two or more drives.

partition table

Table located in the boot sector of a hard drive that lists every partition on the disk that contains a valid operating system.

Master Boot Record (MBR)

The first sector on a hard drive, which contains the partition table and a program the BIOS uses to boot an OS from the drive.

True or False: A single MBR disk may have up to four primary partitions or up to three primary partitions and one extended partition.

True

True or False: Extended partitions do not receive drive letters, but the logical drives within an extended partition do.

True

True or False: Only one master boot record and one partition table within that master boot record exist per MBR disk. Each partition has a partition boot sector.

True

True or False: Only the lower-end editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7 don't support dynamic disks.

True

True or False: The terms "volume" and "partition" refer to the same thing: a defined chunk of your hard drive.

True

Windows supports how many different partitioning methods and name them?

Three; 1.) the older master boot record (MBR) partitioning scheme 2.) Windows' proprietary dynamic storage partitioning scheme 3.) the GUID partition table.

Striped Volumes

are RAID 0 volumes. You may take any two unallocated spaces on two separate hard drives and stripe them. But again, if either drive fails, you lose all of your data.

Mirrored Volumes

are RAID 1 volumes. You may take any two unallocated spaces on two separate hard rives and mirror them. If one of the two mirrored drives fails, the other keeps running.

Primary Partitions

are designed to support bootable operating systems.

Extended Partitions

are not bootable. May only have one extended partition per disk. Purpose is to divide a large disk into smaller partitions, each with a separate drive letter.

Swap Partition

are only found on Linux or UNIX systems. A swap Partitions only job is to act like RAM when your system needs more RAM than you have installed.

RAID 5 volumes

as the name implies, are for RAID 5 arrays. A RAID 5 volume requires three or more dynamic disks with equal-sized unallocated spaces.

Spanned Volumes

use unallocated space on multiple drives to create a single volume. Spanned volumes are a bit risky: if any of the spanned drives fails, the entire volume is lost.

Clustering

simply refers to combining a set of contiguous sectors and treating them as a single unit in the FAT. These units are called file allocations or clusters.

Name two big improvements GPT (Globally Unique Identifier Partition Table) offers over MBR (Master Boot Record)?

1.) A MBR is limited to 4 partitions whereas a GPT can have an almost unlimited number of primary partitions. 2.) MBR partitions can be no larger than 2.2 TB but a GPT partitions have no such restrictions. Well, there is a maximum size limit but its so large we measure it in zettabytes. A zettabyte is a million terabytes.

Name the two most common situations likely to require partitioning?

1.) installing an OS on a new system. 2.) adding an additional drive to an existing system.

Hidden Partitions

A hidden partition is just a primary partition hidden from your operating system. Only special BIOS tools can access a hidden partition.

Factory Recovery Partition

A hidden partition that contains a restorable copy of an installed operating system.

root directory

Directory that contains all other directories. The root directory provides the foundation upon which the OS builds files and folders.

Another name for Dynamic Storage Partitioning?

Dynamic Disks

FAT16

F allocation table that uses 16 bits to address and index clusters. Used as the primary hard drive format on DOS and early Windows 95 machines; currently used with smaller-capacity (2 GB or less) flash media devices.

high-level formatting

Format that sets up a file system on a drive. Known as quick format in Microsoft speak

How many partitions does the MBR partition tables support?

Four

Basic Disk

Hard drive partitioned in the "classic" way with a master boot record (MBR) and partition table. (See also dynamic disks.)

FAT (File Allocation Table)

Hidden table that records how files on a hard disk are stored in distinct clusters; the only way DOS knows where to access files. Address of first cluster of a file is stored in the directory file. FAT entry for the first cluster is the address of the second cluster used to store that file. In the entry for the second cluster for that file is the address for the third cluster, and so on until the final cluster, which gets a special end-of-file code. There are two FATs, mirror images of each other, in case one is destroyed or damaged. Also refers to the 16-bit file allocation table when used by Windows 2000 and later NT-based operating systems.

Name the two types of partitions supported by MBR partition tables?

Primary partitions and extended partitions

Fragmentation

Occurs when files and directories get jumbled on a fixed disk and are no longer contiguous. Can significantly slow down hard drive access times and can be repaired by using the defrag utility included with each version of Windows. (See also defragmentation.)

GPT (Globally Unique Identifier Partition Table)

Partitioning scheme that enables you to create more than four primary partitions without needing to use dynamic disks.

Volume

Physical unit of a storage medium, such as tape reel or disk pack, that is capable of having data recorded on it and subsequently read. Also, a contiguous collection of cylinders or blocks on a disk that are treated as a separate unit.

Partition boot sector

Stores info important to its partition, such as the location of OS boot files.

format

command in the command line interface used to format a storage device

End-of-File Marker

is a condition in a computer operating system where no more data can be read from a data source.

Partitioning

is the process of electronically subdividing the physical hard drive into smaller units called partitions.

A hard drive must have at least how many partitions?

one

Simple Volumes

work a lot like primary partitions. If you have a hard drive and you want to make half of it E: and the other half F:, for example you create two volumes on a dynamic disk.