DESKTOP ADMINISTRATION and BASIC OF NETWORK

About Windows 10 Disk Management

Windows 10 is the latest Operating System (OS) released by Microsoft. It improves much
compared with Windows 8 such as adding the Start Menu seen in Windows 7, a virtual desktop
system, a voice assistant named Cortana, Xbox app and streaming, and Edge browser.

Disk Management is a built-in tool in Windows 10 which is widely known by PC users. It is able to
help you manage hard disk partitions without rebooting system and any interruption. It is a
convenient tool for Windows 10 users. The features of Windows 10 Disk Management are as
follows:

• Create, delete and format partitions.

• Change drive letter and paths.
• Mark partition as active.
• Explore partition to view files.
• Extend and shrink partition.
• Add mirror.
• Initialize a brand new disk before you can use it.
• Convert empty MBR to GPT disk, and vice versa.
• Convert empty dynamic disk to basic disk.
• More about partition hard drive Windows 10.

Extend Partition with Windows 10 Disk Management

Maybe most of Windows 10 desktop and laptop users have come across the problem of low disk space,
especially for system partition. With Disk Management in Windows 10, you can reduce the influence of
low disk space in some ways. To use this tool, you should know how to open Windows 10 Disk
Management, so we introduce 3 ways for you.

• Way 1: The easiest way to open Disk Management in Windows 10 is from computer Desktop. Right click
on Start Menu (or press Windows+X hotkey) and then select "Disk Management".

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• Way 2: Use Windows+R hotkey to open Run window. Then type "Diskmgmt.msc" and click "OK" or hit
"Enter" key.

• Way 3: Directly type "disk management" in the Search box and choose "Create and format hard disk
partitions" from the results.

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After you open Disk Management, right click the partition you would like to expand and then
choose Extend Volume (e.g. C partition).

When you use Windows 10 Disk Management to extend a partition, sometimes you may find the Extend
Volume option is grayed out.

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Is there something wrong with this tool? No, the reason is that the function of Extend Volume in
Windows 10 is only available when there is contiguous unallocated space behind the partition you would
like to extend. What can you do when you don't have unallocated space on hard drive?

How to clean up system files with the Windows 10 Disk Cleanup tool
Windows 10 has a feature built into the Disk Cleanup tool called Clean Up System Files that not many
people take full advantage of. This feature is designed to help you regain valuable hard disk space by
removing system files that are no longer necessary to the functioning of the operating system—old
installation files, Windows Update leftovers, and outdated device drivers, just to name a few.

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The Disk Cleanup tool

The Disk Cleanup tool has been around for quite some time. Its job is to make it easy to clean
out old and unnecessary files that can clog up your hard disk. It's the perfect place for the Clean
Up System Files feature to live, since it's designed to weed through the WinSxS folder and
eliminate waste. Rather than just jumping straight into the Clean up system files feature, let's
look at the Disk Cleanup tool as a whole and then delve into the how the feature works.

To easily run the Disk Cleanup tool, launch File Explorer, select This PC, and select Local Disk
(C:). To continue, select the Drive Tools Manage tab and click the Cleanup button, as shown
in Figure B.

Figure B

You can launch Disk Cleanup from within File Explorer.

Once you launch Disk Cleanup, it will begin to analyze the files on your hard disk to determine
what can be safely removed, as shown in Figure C.

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Figure C

The Disk Cleanup tool will scan your hard disk and locate files that can be removed to free up space.

Once the disk space analysis is complete, you'll see the main Disk Cleanup interface (Figure D),
which essentially lists the categories or locations containing unnecessary files on your hard disk
that can be removed. Adjacent to each category you'll see the size of the unnecessary files as well
as a check box that allows you to specify that you want to remove those files.

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Figure D

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The main feature of the Disk Cleanup interface is the Files to delete scrolling list.

Beneath the list is a number indicating the total amount of disk space you'll gain by removing the
selected files. And below that is the description panel, which offers more details about the
selected category. The categories in the list will depend on what the Disk Cleanup tool found on
your hard disk. Table A shows some of the most common categories you will find in Disk
Cleanup, along with the descriptions provided.

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Table A

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Most common categories listed in the Disk Cleanup tool

As you select the various categories in the list, a View Files button may appear. If it does, you
can click it to launch a separate File Explorer window that will show the unnecessary files
stored in that location. Keep in mind that the View Files button is not available for all of the
categories.

The Clean Up System Files feature

If you refer back to Figure C, you'll see the Clean Up System Files button next to the View Files
button. Note: This button is flagged with the UAC (User Account Control) icon. Depending on
your UAC setting you may see a UAC prompt when you select that button.

When you click the Clean Up System Files button, Disk Cleanup will display a screen similar to
the one shown in Figure B as it analyzes additional locations on your hard disk to determine
what can be safely removed. When the main Disk Cleanup interface returns, you'll see several
additional categories. Table B shows some of the most common categories in Disk Cleanup's
Files To Delete list after you click the Clean Up System Files button.

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Table B

Categories
gories that appear in Disk Cleanup when you select the Clean Up system files button

Running Disk Cleanup

When you select some or all of the various categories, take note of them and the value in the
Total Amount Of Disk Space You Gain row. On my example system, I selected all the categories,
and Disk Cleanup reported that I would gain 2.90 GB of disk space. W When
hen you're ready, click

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OK. Disk Cleanup will prompt you to confirm that you want to permanently delete the selected
files, as shown in Figure E.

Figure E

Disk Cleanup will prompt you to confirm the permanent delete operation.

When you click Delete Files,, Disk Cleanup will go to work cleaning up all the files in the
categories you selected, as shown in Figure F.

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Figure F

Disk Cleanup will remove any unnecessary files.

The end result

When Disk Cleanup is done, the dialog will just close. Unfortunately, yyou
ou won't receive any
feedback on the success of the operation. However, you will want to restart your system once
Disk Cleanup completes its operation. After your system restarts, check the results manually by
launching Disk Cleanup, selecting the categori
categories
es you selected the first time through, and taking
note of the value in the Total amount Of Disk Space You Gain row.

As you can see in Figure G, on my example system I went from 2.90 GB down to 55.2 MB—
MB
which means that I gained approximately 2.8 GB of hard disk space. A very good gain indeed!

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Figure G

How and When to Defragment Your Hard Drive in Windows 10

Over time, files on your hard drive get fragmented, and your computer slows down because it
has to check multiple places on your drive for those pieces. To have your computer run more
efficiently, use the built-in tool in Windows to defragment those files. Here's how and when you
should do it.

Windows 10, like Windows 8 and Windows 7 before it, automatically defragments files for you
on a schedule (by default, once a week). However, it doesn't always run consistently, so if you
notice files are taking longer to load or you just want to double-check every month or so, you
can see how fragmented the drive is in Windows.

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1. Open the disk optimization tool by searching for "optimize" or "defrag" in the taskbar.

2.
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3. 2. Select your hard drive and click Analyze. Note that if you have a SSD, this option is
grayed out and not available.

4.
3. Check the percentage of fragmented files in the results.

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5.

6. There's no hard and fast rule about how fragmented your drive should be before you
defrag it. You might want to keep your fragmentation percentage under 5% or so,
however, so that the defragmentation process doesn’t take too long to finish.

7. 4. If you want to defragme

defragment your drive, click Optimize. It's best to do this when you don't
need to use your computer for anything else, so you can let Windows defragment the
drive efficiently.

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8.
When Windows is done, your drive should say 0% fragmented in the Optimize Drives
utility.

HDD LIFE TEST

Hard drives fail, and they fail often, with 22% of hard drives failing in their first four years of usage.
usage You
can generally consider your computer's drivdrivee reliable, but it's really like playing the lottery and hoping
your drive isn't one of those that ends up with disk errors that make your data inaccessible before you
had a chance to back those files up.

there's Windows' own built-in

in chkdsk
chkdsk.. Run it from the command line (Win+X keyboard shortcut
and choose the administrator option for opening the command prompt, then enter this command
to run checkdisk
sk and fix any disk problems chkdsk /F).

If these utilities show your hard drive has errors and can't be repaired, it's time to make sure you
have a recent back up of your files, and then weigh your options between replacing the drive and
reinstalling Windowsows and your programs or getting a new computer.

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ISO
An ISO file is a complete disc image of a CD or DVD bundled into a single file. You can mount an ISO file to
make it available as a virtual CD or DVD, allowing you to convert physical discs to virtual ones.

ISO files are particularly useful if you want to use old game or software discs on a modern computer that
doesn’t have a disc drive. Although, you should note that some DRM copy protection schemes won’t
work with ISO files, unless you jump through additional hoops. ISO files are also great for things like
providing a disc to a virtual machine program, or just saving a copy of a disc so that you can recreate it in
the future if you need to.

Windows doesn’t have a built-in way to create ISO files, although modern versions of Windows—
Windows 8, 8.1, and 10—can all natively mount ISO files without any additional software.

To actually create an ISO file from your own physical disc, you’ll need a third-party program. There are
lots of tools that can do this, but you need to be careful because many of them are packed
with junkware.

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