Learn Windows XP Professional in 15 Minutes a Week: Using the Disk Management Tool in Windows XP Professional

In Microsoft Windows XP Professional, you can perform most disk administrative tasks, both local and remote, by using the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in tool called Disk Management, which can be used to convert disks, as well as format current partitions and unallocated space. You can also check on the status of fixed and removable disks and their associated properties.

Using the Disk Management Tool

Just as a quick review from last week, you would normally need to be a local administrator to perform most system configuration functions (even just taking a look at the current configuration settings) on a Windows XP Professional system, and in some cases, there may be a local policy set by some other administrator or, if your system is in a Domain, a Domain policy setting which may prevent you from performing some actions.

To open the Disk Management MMC, you can select Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Manage, which will open the Computer Management MMC. Under the Storage icon, click Disk Management to open the Disk Management MMC.

You can also type compmgmt.msc in the RUN box or from a command line to launch the Computer Management MMC.

[NOTES FROM THE FIELD] - What your Start Menu options look like all depend on how you have the menu set. If you are using the Classic Start Menu, you would not see My Computer as a selection to right click on. Your options would be to click Start, select Administrative Tools and then select Computer Management. Not a whole lot different, but perhaps just enough to confuse you.

I seem to continually repeat this from article to article, but it is important to stress, the Windows XP Professional exam rarely tests you on Classic anything. You need to know how to get from Windows XP Professional settings to Classic and back, but in 90% of the cases you're going to find instructions laid out in the Windows XP Professional vein. I will do my best to point out alternatives in the [NOTES FROM THE FIELD] section as I have done here.

If you want to directly open the Disk Management MMC you can type diskmgmt.msc from the RUN box or from a command line. This will run the tool independently from the Computer Management MMC.

Disk Management, which was introduced in the Windows 2000 line of NT-based Windows operating systems, replaces the Disk Administrator utility found in Windows NT 4.0.