3. Check whether any dynamic disks you want to move are part of a spanned, extended, or striped set. If they are, you should make a note of which disks are part of which set and plan on moving all disks in a set together. If you are moving only part of a disk set, you should be aware of the consequences. For spanned, extended, or striped volumes, moving only part of the set will make the related volumes unusable on the current computer and on the computer to which you are planning to move the disks.
When you are ready to move the disks, follow these steps:
1. On the original computer, start Computer Management. Then, in the left pane, select Device Manager. In the Device list, expand Disk Drives. This shows a list of the physical disk drives on the computer. Press and hold or right-click each disk you want to move, and then tap or click Uninstall. If you are unsure which disks to uninstall, press and hold or right-click each disk and tap or click Properties. In the Properties dialog box, tap or click the Volumes tab and then select Populate to show the volumes on the selected disk.
2. Next, on the original computer, select the Disk Management node in Computer Management. If the disk or disks you want to move are still listed, press and hold or right-click each disk, and then tap or click Remove Disk.
3. After you perform these procedures, you can move the dynamic disks. If the disks are hot-swappable disks and this feature is supported on both computers, remove the disks from the original computer, and then install them on the destination computer. Otherwise, turn off both computers, remove the drives from the original computer, and then install them on the destination computer. When you have finished, restart the computers.
4. On the destination computer, access Disk Management, and then choose Rescan Disks from the Action menu. When Disk Management finishes scanning the disks, press and hold or right-click any disk marked Foreign, and then tap or click Import. You should now be able to access the disks and their volumes on the destination computer.
NOTE In most cases, the volumes on the dynamic disks should retain the drive letters they had on the original computer. however, if a drive letter is already used on the destination computer, a volume receives the next available drive letter. If a dynamic volume previously did not have a drive letter, it does not receive a drive letter when moved to the destination computer. Additionally, if automounting is disabled, the volumes aren’t automatically mounted, and you must manually mount volumes and assign drive letters.
Managing virtual hard disks
By using Disk Management, you can create, attach, and detach VHDs. You can create a VHD by choosing Create VHD from the Action menu. In the Create And Attach Virtual Hard Disk dialog box, tap or click Browse. Use the Browse Virtual Disk Files dialog box to select the location where you want to create the.vhd file for the VHD, and then tap or click Save.
In the Virtual Hard Disk Size list, enter the size of the disk in megabytes, gigabytes, or terabytes. Specify whether the size of the VHD dynamically expands to its fixed maximum size as data is saved to it or instead uses a fixed amount of space regardless of the amount of data stored on it. When you tap or click OK, Disk Management creates the VHD.
The VHD is attached automatically and added as a new disk. To initialize the disk for use, press and hold or right-click the disk entry in Graphical View, and then tap or click Initialize Disk. In the Initialize Disk dialog box, the disk is selected for initialization. Specify the disk type as MBR or GPT, and then tap or click OK.
After initializing the disk, press and hold or right-click the unpartitioned space on the disk and create a volume of the appropriate type. After you create the volume, the VHD is available for use.
After you’ve created, attached, initialized, and formatted a VHD, you can work with a virtual disk in much the same way as you work with other disks. You can write data to and read data from a VHD. You can boot the computer from a VHD. You are able to take a VHD offline or put a VHD online by pressing and holding or right-clicking the disk entry in Graphical View and selecting Offline or Online, respectively. If you no longer want to use a VHD, you can detach it by pressing and holding or right-clicking the disk entry in Graphical View, selecting Detach VHD, and then tapping or clicking OK in the Detach Virtual Hard Disk dialog box.
You can use VHDs created with other programs as well. If you created a VHD using another program or have a detached VHD you want to attach, you can work with the VHD by completing the following steps:
1. In Disk Management, tap or click the Attach VHD option on the Action menu.
2. In the Attach Virtual Hard Disk dialog box, tap or click Browse. Use the Browse Virtual Disk Files dialog box to select the.vhd file for the VHD, and then tap or click Open.
3. If you want to attach the VHD in read-only mode, select Read-Only. Tap or click OK to attach the VHD.
Using basic disks and partitions
When you install a new computer or update an existing computer, you often need to partition the drives on the computer. You partition drives by using Disk Management.
Partitioning basics
In Windows Server 2012 R2, a physical drive using the MBR partition style can have up to four primary partitions and one extended partition. This allows you to configure MBR drives in one of two ways: by using one to four primary partitions, or by using one to three primary partitions and one extended partition. A primary partition can fill an entire disk, or you can size it as appropriate for the workstation or server you’re configuring. Within an extended partition, you can create one or more logical drives. A logical drive is simply a section of a partition with its own file system. Generally, you use logical drives to divide a large drive into manageable sections. With this in mind, you might want to divide a 600-GB extended partition into three logical drives of 200 GB each. Physical disks with the GPT partition style can have up to 128 partitions.
After you partition a drive, you format the partitions. This is high-level formatting that creates the file system structure rather than low-level formatting that sets up the drive for initial use. You’re probably very familiar with the C drive used by Windows Server 2012 R2. Well, the C drive is simply the designator for a disk partition. If you partition a disk into multiple sections, each section can have its own drive letter. You use the drive letters to access file systems in various partitions on a physical drive. Unlike MS-DOS, which assigns drive letters automatically starting with the letter C, Windows Server 2012 R2 lets you specify drive letters. Generally, the drive letters C through Z are available for your use.
NOTE The drive letter A used to be assigned to a system’s floppy disk drive. If the system had a second floppy disk drive, the letter B was assigned to it, so you could use only the letters C through Z. Don’t forget that DVD drives and other types of media drives need drive letters as well. The total number of drive letters you can use at one time is 24. If you need additional volumes, you can create them by using drive paths.