Once a new disk has been installed into a Windows Server 2008 system it must be initialized before any partitions can be created on it. This is performed using the Initialize Disk Wizard which can be accessed from the Disk Management snap-in. This can be accessed either from the ServerManager or Computer Management tools. To launch the Server Manager open the Start menu and click on the Server Manager option, or click on the Server Manager icon in the task bar. Alternatively launch Computer Management from Start -> All Programs -> Administration Tools -> Computer Management or run compmgmt.csc.
With either the Server Manager or Computer Management tools running, select the Storage option from the left hand panel followed by Disk Management. The Disk Manager will subsequently appear. Ensure that the top pane is displaying the Disk List so that the new drive is visible. This is configured by selecting the View->Top-Disk List option from the top menu bar. Any uninitialized disks will be listed in the disk view as Offline and with a red down arrow on the disk drive icon in both the list and graphical views. In addition, the disk space will be indicated as unallocated in the graphical view. The following image shows a newly installed and uninitialized disk drive shown in the Disk Manager:
Before a new disk can be initialized it must first be brought online. To bring this disk online right click on the disk icon in either disk or graphical list and select Online from the popup menu. Once this disk is brought online the graphical view will categorize the disk as Not Initialized. To initialize the disk right click once again on the disk icon and select Initialize Disk. In the resulting dialog ensure that the correct disk is selected for initialization and then choose whether to initialize the disk using the MBR or GPT partition styles. The Initialize Disk dialog is shown in the following figure ready to initialize disk 1 using the MBR partition style:
Click on OK to initialize the disk. Once completed, the disk will be listed with the chosen partition style with the space marked as Unallocated in the graphical view. The next step is to create partitions on the disks or use them as dynamic disks. These topics are covered in subsequent chapters.
Converting Disks between MBR and GPT Partition Styles
Once a disk has been initialized as GPT or MBR it is quite possible that one day the disk partition style will need to be changed. There is good news and bad news regarding converting partition style in Windows Server 2008. The good news is that this can be achieved either using the Disk Management tool or from the command line using diskpart. The bad news is that conversions can only be performed on empty disks. This means that any pre-existing volumes on the disk must be backed up and deleted before performing the conversion.
To perform a conversion from the Disk Management interface, right click on the icon for the empty drive in the graphical view. If the disk is currently using MBR then the menu will provide the option to Convert to GPT Disk. Alternatively, if the disk is currently using the GPT partition style theConvert Disk to MBR menu option will be presented. In either case, selecting the conversion option will immediately and silently change the partition style.
To perform the same task using diskpart, begin by listing the available disks:
DISKPART> list disk Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt -------- ---------- ------- ------- --- --- Disk 0 Online 30 GB 0 B Disk 1 Online 10 GB 10 GB
Select the desired disk (in this case disk 1):
DISKPART> select disk 1 Disk 1 is now the selected disk.
Finally, convert the disk using the convert command followed by mbr or gpt depending on whether the disk is being converted to MBR or GPT partition style respectively:
DISKPART> convert mbr DiskPart successfully converted the selected disk to MBR format. DISKPART> convert gpt DiskPart successfully converted the selected disk to GPT format.
Type exit to close the diskpart session.
