1. Moving a Dynamic Disk to a New System
An important advantage of dynamic
disks over basic disks is that you can easily move dynamic disks from
one computer to another. For example, after setting up a computer, if
you decide that you don’t really need an additional hard disk, you can
move it to another computer where it can be better used. Before moving disks, you should complete the following steps:
-
Open Disk Management on the computer where the dynamic disks are
currently installed and check their status. The status should be
Healthy. If it isn’t, you should fix any problems before moving the
disks.
Caution
Drives with BitLocker Drive Encryption cannot be moved using this
technique. Windows 8 Enterprise and Ultimate editions include BitLocker
Driver Encryption, which wraps drives in a protected seal so that any
offline tampering is detected and results in the disk being unavailable
until an administrator unlocks it.
-
Check the hard disk subsystems on the original computer and on the
computer to which you want to transfer the disk. Both computers should
have identical hard disk subsystems. If they don’t, the Plug and Play
ID on the system disk from the original computer won’t match what the
destination computer is expecting. As a result, the destination
computer won’t be able to load the right drivers, and boot might fail. -
Check whether any dynamic
disks that 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 move only part of a disk set, be
aware of the consequences. For spanned, extended, or striped volumes,
moving only part of the set makes 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, complete the following steps:
-
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 all the physical disk drives on the
computer. In turn, press and hold or right-click each disk that 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 in turn,
and then tap or click Properties. In the Properties dialog box, tap or
click the Volumes tab, and then tap or click Populate. This shows you
the volumes on the selected disk. -
Next, select the Disk Management node in Computer Management on the
original computer. Press and hold or right-click each disk that you
want to move, and then tap or click Remove Disk. -
Once you perform these procedures, you can move the dynamic disks.
If the disks are hot-swappable 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. -
On the destination computer, open Disk Management, and then tap or
click Rescan Disks on 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
The volumes on the dynamic disks should retain the drive
letters that they had on the original computer. 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 it is moved to
another computer. Additionally, if automounting is disabled, the
volumes aren’t automatically mounted, and you must manually mount
volumes and assign drive letters. 2. Troubleshooting Common Disk Problems
Windows 8 makes extensive use of disk drives during startup and
normal operations. You can often dramatically improve operating system
and application performance by optimizing a computer’s disk drives. You
should focus on disk space usage, disk errors, and disk fragmentation.
You might also want to compress data to reduce the space used by data
files, freeing up space for additional files.
Note
Disk maintenance
tools, such as Disk Cleanup, Check Disk, and Disk Defragmenter, take
advantage of resource prioritization features in Windows 8. These changes enable these tools to
run in the background to take advantage of system idle time while
running. As a result, users get a consistently good performance level
even when background maintenance tasks are running.
You should closely monitor disk space usage on all system drives. As
drives begin to fill up, their performance and the performance of the
operating system as a whole can be reduced, particularly if the system
runs low on space for storing virtual memory or temporary files. One
way to reduce disk space usage is to use the Disk Cleanup tool to
remove unnecessary files and compress old files.
Using Disk Management, you can determine the status of disks and the
volumes they contain. Disk status is displayed in Graphical view below
the physical disk number and in the Disk List view in the Status
column. Volume status is displayed as part of the volume information in
Graphical view and in the Status column in Volume List view.
Table 1
lists status messages you might see for disks. You’ll find a diagnosis
and suggested corrective action in the Resolution column.
Table 1. Understanding and Resolving Disk Status Issues
|
STATUS |
DESCRIPTION |
RESOLUTION |
|---|
|
Online |
The normal disk status. It means the disk is accessible and doesn’t have problems. |
The drive doesn’t have any known problems. You don’t need to take any corrective action. | |
Online (Errors) |
I/O errors have been detected on the disk. |
You can try to correct temporary errors by pressing and holding or
right-clicking the disk and then tapping or clicking Reactivate Disk.
If this doesn’t work, the disk might have physical damage, or you might
need to run a thorough check of the disk. | |
Offline |
The disk isn’t accessible and might be corrupted or temporarily
unavailable. If the disk status changes to Missing, the disk can no
longer be located or identified on the system. |
Check for problems with the drive, its controller, and its cables.
Make sure that the drive has power and is connected properly. Use the
Reactivate Disk command to bring the disk back online (if possible). | |
Foreign |
The disk has
been moved to your computer but hasn’t been imported for use. A failed
drive brought back online might sometimes be listed as Foreign. |
Press and hold or right-click the disk, and then tap or click Import Foreign Disks to add the disk to the system. | |
Unreadable |
The disk isn’t accessible currently, which can occur when disks are being rescanned. |
With FireWire/USB card readers, you might see this status if the
card is unformatted or improperly formatted. You might also see this
status after the card is removed from the reader. Otherwise, if the
drives aren’t being scanned, the drive might be corrupted or have I/O
errors. Press and hold or right-click the disk, and then tap or click
Rescan Disk (the command is also on the Action menu) to try to correct
the problem. You might also want to reboot the system. | |
Unrecognized |
The disk is of an unknown type and can’t be used on the system. A drive from a non-Windows system might display this status. |
If the disk is from another operating system, don’t do anything. You
can’t use the drive on the computer, so try a different drive. | |
Not Initialized |
The disk doesn’t have a valid signature. A drive from a non-Windows system might display this status. |
If the disk is from another operating system, don’t do anything. You
can’t use the drive on the computer, so try a different drive. To
prepare the disk for use on Windows 8, press and hold or right-click
the disk, and then tap or click Initialize Disk. | |
No Media |
No media has been inserted into the DVD or removable drive, or the
media has been removed. Only DVD and removable disk types display this
status. |
Insert a DVD or a removable disk to bring the disk online. With
FireWire/USB card readers, this status is usually but not always
displayed when the card is removed. |
Table 2
lists status messages you might see for volumes. You’ll find a
diagnosis and suggested corrective action in the Resolution column.
Table 2. Understanding and Resolving Volume Status Issues
|
STATUS |
DESCRIPTION |
RESOLUTION |
|---|
|
Data Incomplete |
Spanned volumes on a foreign disk are incomplete. You must have forgotten to add the other disks from the spanned volume set. |
Add the disks that contain the rest of the spanned volume and then import all the disks at one time. | |
Data Not Redundant |
Fault-tolerant volumes on a foreign disk are incomplete. You must have forgotten to add the other disk from a mirror set. |
Add the remaining disk and then import the disks at one time. | |
Failed |
An error disk status. The disk is inaccessible or damaged. |
Ensure that the related disk is online, and, as necessary, press and
hold or right-click the disk and then tap or click Reactivate Disk.
Press and hold or right-click the volume, and then tap or click
Reactivate Volume. You might need to check the disk for a faulty
connection. | |
Failed Redundancy |
Fault-tolerant disks are out of sync. |
You can try to put the disks back in sync by pressing and holding or
right-clicking the failed volume and selecting Reactivate Volume. | |
Formatting |
A temporary status that indicates the volume is being formatted. |
The progress of the formatting is indicated as the percent complete, unless the Perform A Quick Format option was selected. | |
Healthy |
The normal volume status. |
The volume doesn’t have any known problems. You don’t need to take any corrective action. | |
Healthy (At Risk) |
Windows had problems reading from or writing to the physical disk on
which the volume is located. This status appears when Windows
encounters errors. |
Press and hold or right-click the disk, and then tap or click
Reactivate Disk. If the disk continues to have this status or has this
status periodically, the disk might be failing and you should back up
all data on the disk. | |
Healthy (Unknown Partition) |
Windows does not recognize the partition. This can occur because the
partition is from a different operating system or is a
manufacturer-created partition used to store system files. |
No corrective action is necessary. | |
Initializing |
A temporary status that indicates the disk is being initialized. |
The drive status should change after a few seconds. | |
Resynching |
A temporary status that indicates that a mirror set is being resynchronized. |
Progress is indicated as the percent complete. The volume should return to Healthy status. | |
Stale Data |
Data on foreign disks that are fault tolerant are out of sync. |
Rescan the disks or restart the computer, and then check the status.
A new status should be displayed, such as Failed Redundancy. | |
Unknown |
The volume cannot be accessed. It might have a corrupted boot sector. |
The volume might have a boot sector virus. Check it with an
up-to-date antivirus program. If no virus is found, boot from the
Windows 8 media and use the Recovery Console’s Fixmbr command to fix
the master boot record. |
2.1 Repairing Disk Errors and Inconsistencies
Windows 8 includes feature enhancements that reduce the amount of
manual maintenance you must perform on disk drives. The following
enhancements have the most impact on the way you work with disks:
-
Transactional NTFS -
Self-healing NTFS
Transactional NTFS allows file operations on an NTFS volume to be
performed transactionally. This means programs can use a transaction to
group together sets of file and registry operations so that all of them
succeed or none of them succeed. While a transaction is active, changes
are not visible outside the transaction. Changes are committed and
written fully to disk only when a transaction is completed
successfully. If a transaction fails or is incomplete, the program
rolls back the transactional work to restore the file system to the
state it was in prior to the transaction.
Transactions that span multiple volumes are coordinated by the
Kernel Transaction Manager (KTM). The KTM supports independent recovery
of volumes if a transaction fails. The local resource manager for a
volume maintains a separate transaction log and is responsible for
maintaining threads for transactions separate from threads that perform
the file work.
Traditionally, you have had to use the Check Disk tool to fix errors and inconsistencies in NTFS volumes on a disk.
Because this process can disrupt the availability of Windows systems,
Windows 8 uses self-healing NTFS to protect file systems without having
to use separate maintenance tools to fix problems. Because much of the
self-healing process is enabled and performed automatically, you might
need to perform volume maintenance manually only when you are notified
by the operating system that a problem cannot be corrected
automatically. If such an error occurs, Windows 8 notifies you about
the problem and provides possible solutions.
Self-healing NTFS has many advantages over Check Disk, including the following:
-
Check Disk must have exclusive access to volumes, which means system
and boot volumes can be checked only when the operating system starts
up. On the other hand, with self-healing NTFS, the file system is
always available and does not need to be corrected offline (in most
cases). -
Self-healing NTFS attempts to preserve as much data as possible if
corruption occurs and reduces failed file system mounting that
previously could occur if a volume was known to have errors or
inconsistencies. During restart, self-healing NTFS repairs the volume
immediately so that it can be mounted. -
Self-healing NTFS reports changes made to the volume during repair
through existing Chkdsk.exe mechanisms, directory notifications, and
USN journal entries. This feature also allows authorized users and
administrators to monitor repair operations through Verification,
Waiting For Repair Completion, and Progress Status messages. -
Self-healing NTFS can recover a volume if the boot sector is
readable but does not identify an NTFS volume. In this case, you must
run an offline tool that repairs the boot sector and then allow
self-healing NTFS to initiate recovery.
Although self-healing NTFS is a terrific enhancement, at times you
might want to (or might have to) manually check the integrity of a
disk. In these cases, you can use Check Disk (Chkdsk.exe) to check for
and, optionally, repair problems found on FAT, FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS
volumes. Although Check Disk can check for and correct many types of
errors, the utility primarily looks for inconsistencies in the file
system and its related metadata. Beyond this, the usefulness of Check
Disk is rather limited.
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