Manage Partitions with Disk Management on Windows XP

Disk Management is a snap-in that's part of the Microsoft Management Console supplied with Windows XP. Just as the name Disk Management implies it's a tool used to manage system disks, both local and remote on Windows XP. If you've been around personal computers for a number of years you're familiar with Fdisk, the utility that was used in conjunction with the Format command to set up hard disks from the command prompt. Disk Management, with its graphical user interface, goes a long way to eliminating the need for the command prompt utilities and makes it easy to obtain a quick overview of the system and the relationships between installed disks and partitions. Accessing Disk Management There are a few different ways to access Disk Management on Windows XP. Bellow is three different methods so choose whichever is more convenient.

Basic Disk Management Functions
All too often the help documentation that's supplied with programs falls short of the mark, but in the case of Disk Management Microsoft did an above average job. And a few of the more common tasks of Disk Management on Windows XP are listed bellow:

• Create partitions, logical drives, and volumes on Windows XP.
• Delete partitions, logical drives, and volumes on Windows XP.
• Format partitions and volumes on Windows XP.
• Mark partitions as active on Windows XP.
• Assign or modify drive letters for hard disk volumes, removable disk drives, and CD-ROM drives on Windows XP.
• Obtain a quick visual overview of the properties of all disks and volumes in the system on Windows XP.
• Create mounted drives on systems using the NTFS file system on Windows XP.
• Convert basic disks to dynamic disks on Windows XP.
• Convert dynamic to basic disks, although this is a destructive operation on Windows XP.
• On dynamic disks, create a number of specialty volumes including spanned, striped, mirrored, and RAID-5 volumes on Windows XP.

Disk Management makes extensive use of context menus. Right clicking on a drive or partition will normally present a menu that contains the options and procedures available for the particular device. The Action menu item is an alternate method for determining the same information. An advantage of using Disk Management is the majority of changes you can make don't require rebooting the system so you can continue working while the procedures complete.
At first glance it may appear there isn't much substance to Disk Management, but in truth it can be quite useful for many tasks. That's not to say it's without limitations because it does have some. One of the major limitations is the inability to resize a partition to make it smaller in a non-destructive manner on Windows XP. That limitation, and others, can be overcome by a number of third party utilities to fill in the gaps where Disk Management is lacking, but a full understanding of what Disk Management can and cannot do relative to your individual situation and needs will help you determine if a third party disk management utility is necessary.

Related article: How To Use Disk Management To Create Partitions On Windows XP