Exam Highlights

Before taking the exam, review the key topics and terms that are presented in this chapter. You need to know this information.

Key Points

• When taking the exam, pay close attention to the operating system in use and the type of computer. Remember that you can only use dynamic disks on nonportable computers that are running Windows XP Professional.

• Windows XP 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 to use an identical amount of disk space from multiple hard disks. The advantage of using striped volumes is that Windows can read from and write to the disk more quickly.

• 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.

Key Terms

basic disk A physical disk that can be accessed locally by MS-DOS and all Windows- based operating systems. Basic disks can contain up to four primary partitions or three primary partitions and an extended partition with multiple logical drives. If you want to create partitions that span multiple disks, you must first convert the basic disk to a dynamic disk using Disk Management or the DiskPart.exe command-line utility. Note that whether a disk is basic or dynamic has no bearing on whether computers running other operating systems can connect to shared folders on the disk.

Disk Management The process of creating, managing, and monitoring disks in Windows XP. Also the name of the Windows XP utility used to perform these functions.

DiskPart.exe A command-line utility used to manage the partitions on your hard disk volumes.

dynamic disk A physical disk that can be accessed locally only by Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Dynamic disks provide features that basic disks do not, such as support for volumes that span multiple disks. Dynamic disks use a hidden database to track information about dynamic volumes on the disk and other dynamic disks in the computer. You convert basic disks to dynamic by using the Disk Management snap-in or the DiskPart command-line utility. When you convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk, all existing basic volumes become dynamic volumes. Note that whether a disk is basic or dynamic has no bearing on whether computers running other operating systems can connect to shared folders on the disk.

logical drive A disk storage area that you create within an extended partition on a basic Master Boot Record (MBR) disk. Logical drives are similar to primary partitions, except that you can create an unlimited number of logical drives per disk. A logical drive can be formatted and assigned a drive letter.

partitioning The process of dividing a physical disk into logical sections that function as if they are physically separate disks. After you create a partition, you must format it and assign it a drive letter before you can store data on it.