Windows Vista™ Administrator's Pocket Consultant

Partitioning Disks and Preparing Them for Use

Disk Management is the primary tool that you’ll use to partition disks and prepare them for use. Using Disk Management, you can partition, assign drive designators to, and format both partitions and volumes. Disk Management’s command-line counterparts include DiskPart for partitioning and drive designator assignment and Format for formatting.

Creating Partitions, Logical Drives, and Simple Volumes

Windows Vista simplifies the Disk Management user interface by using one set of dialog boxes and wizards for both partitions and volumes. The first three volumes on a basic drive are created automatically as primary partitions. If you try to create a fourth volume on a basic drive, the remaining free space ...