Which Programs to Use to Create and Format Volumes

This section provides information about how to create and format volumes. You can create and format a volume in one of the following ways:

• During Windows NT Setup, you can:
  • Create and format a new primary partition into which to install Windows NT, provided you have enough unpartitioned disk space for the Windows NT installation (approximately 160 MB for Windows NT Server on a RISC-based computer).
  • Format an existing, unformatted volume into which to install Windows NT.
  • When you choose to install Windows NT in an existing FAT volume, you can convert the volume from the FAT file system to the NTFS file system. Converting preserves the data on the volume.
• If you have Windows NT installed on your computer, you can use Disk Administrator to create and format the volume. You can also use Disk Administrator to reformat an existing volume that is already formatted for the FAT file system or the NTFS file system. Reformatting a volume erases all information about which files used to be on the volume. You can reformat the volume as FAT or NTFS, regardless of what file system it is currently formatted for. For information about Disk Administrator procedures, see the Disk Administrator Help.
• If you want to specify special options during the format, such as a cluster size to use for a FAT volume, you can run the Format program from the command prompt. To see the options for the Format program, enter format /? at the command prompt.
• When running Windows NT, you can use the Convert program to convert an existing FAT volume to an NTFS volume, which preserves the data on the volume. For information about using the Convert program, see Chapter 7, "Disk, File System, and Backup Utilities."
• When you have started MS-DOS, you can use the fdisk command to create a primary partition or logical drive, and use the format command to format the volume for the FAT file system. See MS-DOS Help for information about these commands.
• On Alpha AXP-based computers and MIPS-based computers, you can use the Arcinst program to create and format volumes.

Note

Converting a volume from the FAT file system to the NTFS file system can take a long time, depending on the amount of fragmentation and size of the FAT volume. For example, converting a 1 GB volume can take up to several hours. The conversion process has to read all of the files to build the information that NTFS needs to have about the data on the volume. When using the Convert program or converting the volume in Windows NT Setup, no status information is displayed to indicate that the conversion is proceeding. Although it looks like the conversion process is hung, it might just be taking a long time. For a large volume, it might be a good idea to run the file system conversion process overnight.

It might be faster to back up the data on the FAT volume to tape or a remote computer, reformat the volume as NTFS, and then restore the data.

If you create a single primary partition that occupies the entire disk, you cannot change the way your disk is organized without deleting the primary partition (which deletes all of the information in it) and creating new, smaller primary partitions or an extended partition. You have to back up the information that you need to save to a backup tape or a disk on a remote computer, reinstall Windows NT, and restore the data to the new volumes that you have created.

If there is no unpartitioned space left on your disk, the Create and Create Extended options on the Disk Administrator Partition menu are not available.

When you use Disk Administrator to create volumes, you have to write the changes to the Partition Table before you can format the volume. You know that you need to write the changes if the Format command is not available (grayed) on the Tools menu. You can write the changes by using one of these methods:

• Clicking Commit Changes Now on the Partition menu. You can now click the volume, click the Tools menu, and click Format.
• Exiting Disk Administrator. If you have made changes to your disk configuration, Disk Administrator displays a dialog box that asks whether you want to save changes. Click Yes. You can now restart Disk Administrator, click the volume, click the Tools menu, and click Format.

If you have created a volume but not formatted it, Disk Administrator displays the volume as unformatted. You cannot access the volume in either My Computer or Windows NT Explorer until it has been formatted.

You cannot see an NTFS volume when you are running any operating system other than Windows NT. This means that your drive letters will probably be different when you are running Windows NT and other operating systems. For example, if you have two FAT volumes (C and E), and an NTFS volume (D), and you start the MS-DOS operating system, the second FAT volume will be labeled D. Because MS-DOS does not recognize the NTFS volume, the drive letter that was assigned to the NTFS volume when running Windows NT is used for the second FAT volume when running MS-DOS.

In Disk Administrator, you cannot delete the Windows NT boot partition when you are running Windows NT. You can delete the Windows NT boot partition if it is not the same partition as the system partition and you start another operating system that does not use the Windows NT boot partition as its boot partition.