Guide to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Command Line Administration

1. Guide toMicrosoft Windows Server 2003Command Line Administration Chapter 5 Disk and Data Management

2. Guide to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Command Line Administration 2 Objectives Diagnose and fix physical disk problems and disk fragmentation issues Understand the differences between basic disks and dynamic disks Create partitions and volumes Create extended, spanned, mirrored, striped and RAID 5 volumes Format disks

3. Guide to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Command Line Administration 3 Objectives (Cont.) Implement disk quotas Compress and decompress files Encrypt files

4. Guide to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Command Line Administration 4 Managing Disks and Drives Disk management involves the formatting and structure of disks and drives Disk management is performed from the Disk Management section of the Computer Management GUI within Windows The health and structure of the data that resides on these drives is easily handled by functions within Windows Explorer or My Computer, such as Scandisk or Defrag Scandisk is a GUI utility that scans the data on a drive and locates and fixes corruption Defrag is a GUI utility that restructures the data on a drive in a way that speeds up the processing of that data Most of these disk and disk management tasks can be completed in the command window

5. Guide to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Command Line Administration 5 Disk Condition and Viability Data can be stored either in RAM or on a disk; since RAM is volatile, disks provide a permanent option for storage Different types of disks are available: floppy diskette drives; hard disk drives; Zip disk drives; CD-ROMs Disks are considered the most permanent media: they are not portable or removable and their long-term usage and success requires maintenance tasks Several functions dealing with the health and status of hard disks can be performed or automated within batch files to protect against potential problems that disks may encounter

6. Guide to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Command Line Administration 6 Physical Disk Problems A hard disk does not have errors when it is brand new, but can develop disk problems over time Disks are magnetic media, and the drive heads manipulate the magnetic bits in order to create patterns of data Over time, these magnetic bits can become demagnetized, causing physical disk problems on a drive The CHKDSK command scans a volume, partition, or assigned drive for physical errors on the disk; it finds problems with the surface of the drive and flags those problem areas so that they are not accessed CHKDSK <DRIVELETTER>: /F scans DRIVELETTER for and fixes physical disk problems

7. Guide to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Command Line Administration 7 Physical Disk Problems (Cont.) The best time to initiate the CHKDSK command is before booting the OS CHKDSK requires exclusive usage while it is running and attempting to fix errors, and it requires that no other file or process access a file that it is currently checking; this can safely be done before booting the OS When a system is improperly turned off, sometimes the system will automatically run CHKDSK before booting CHKNTFS is a control program that is used to automate CHKDSK; CHKNTFS schedules CHKDSK to run on the next reboot, and it can determine which disks to scan CHKNTFS <DRIVELETTER>: /C sets DRIVELETTER to be scanned when the system reboots

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