Windows XP s Disk Management Tools

Windows XP's Disk Management Tools

Windows XP comes equipped with a handful of disk management tools, ranging from very powerful ones that can create hard disk stripe sets, create mirror disks, and/or beat a disk into submission, to a couple that are simply convenience items.

The most often-used tools are available right off the Tools tab of a drive's Properties sheet. To reach the Properties sheet, right-click a drive in Explorer. Figure 29.1 shows the Properties tabs for both a FAT drive and an NTFS drive. Notice the difference in the number of tabs. NTFS has more options because of its support for security and quota management.

Figure 29.1. Properties sheets for FAT and NTFS volumes.

The following sections explain the use of the bulk of hard disk management tools included in Windows XP.