DISKPART FORMAT

A basic disk VS a dynamic disk

Diskpart Command and how to use it

There are many converts we could do with “Diskpart”. 1, We can convert a basic disk to a dynamic disk without data loss. 2, We can convert a dynamic disk back to a basic disk. At this situation, all the existing volumes shall be deleted at first and then we can perform “diskpart” to convert the dynamic disk back to a basic disk. 3, Convert MBR disk to GPT. 4, Convert GPT back to MBR. Why should we perform the above convert? We shall know the benefits.

A basic disk VS a dynamic disk

Dynamic disk can construct dynamic volumes like simple volume, stripped volumes, mirrored volume, spanned volume, raid 5 volume. To convert a dynamic disk to a basic disk. You must delete any dynamic volumes before the conversion process. It is not recommended that you delete partitions on a dynamic disk except in emergency situations. It is recommended that you delete all volumes on the drive, and then convert the disk to basic. You must delete all dynamic data partitions. Also, never mix the basic primary and dynamic partitions on the same drive. If you do so, the computer may be unable to restart. Fortunately Paragon Partition Manager can convert dynamic disk to basic disk without data loss.

MBR disk VS GPT disk

Usually we use MBR disk which can hold at most 2 T. However if larger disk is needed like more than 2 TB, then we shall convert MBR disk to GPT disk since GPT disk could hold more TBs.

With Diskpart, you can convert a disk from basic to dynamic. Go to “Start”—“Run”—type “diskpart”—type “list disk”—type “select disk #”(#is the number of your disk which you want to convert)—type “convert dynamic”, “convert basic”, “convert GPT”, “convert MBR” according to your own requirements. In fact you may also perform the above changes under disk management. Go to “My Computer”, right click and go to “Manage”. Go to “Disk Management” and select the basic disk and right click, and then there is a choice to convert it to dynamic disk. Then done, no data loss. With Diskpart, you may do it as following:

There are a few rules you need to keep in mind. The basic disk can be a data disk or system or boot drive. The basic disk can either be empty or contain either primary partitions or logical drives. The basic disk cannot have fault-tolerant disk driver (FtDisk) sets such as stripes or mirrors. To convert basic disks that have FtDisk driver sets, use Disk Management on Windows 2000 or convert the disk before you upgrade to Windows XP.

2. Creat/delete a partition

You can use Diskpart to create a partition at an explicit disk offset. The Disk Management snap-in places the partition at the end of any occupied area or on the first sufficiently large area. On master boot record (MBR) disks, the partition offset and the size are rounded to preserve the required cylinder alignment. Offsets are rounded to the closest valid value, and the size is always rounded up to the next valid value. Diskpart does not assign a drive letter to a newly created partition. Use the assign command to assign either a mount point or a drive letter.

You can use Diskpart to delete missing dynamic disks. Dynamic disks contain a shared database; all of the dynamic disks on a computer have knowledge of all other dynamic disks on that computer. When dynamic disks are moved, the original computer considers theses disks as “missing”.

3, extend partition size

We can use diskpart to resize partition without data loss. By “resize partition”, it means to extend partition. However there are many rules for extending partition.

• It is not the system partition
• It is NTFS partition not FAT
• There is free space right besides the partition
• If it is the dynamic disk, it should be only simple volume and spanned volume.

You can perform the diskpart to extend partition on both Windows OS for home and Server. The steps are as the following:

• Start—Run—diskpart
• type “list volume”
• type “select volume #” (select the number which partition you want to extend), for example: select volume 2
• type “extend”

If it is the system partition usually c drive you want to resize to extend the space or there is no free space on the same disk or it is RAID5, Stripped volume, mirrored volume, here are the solutions:

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DISKPART FORMAT

Format a disk for use with Windows using the DISKPART command.

Syntax DISKPART FORMAT [[FS=FS] [REVISION=X.XX] | RECOMMENDED] [LABEL="label"] [UNIT=N] [QUICK] [COMPRESS] [OVERRIDE] [DUPLICATE] [NOWAIT] [noerr] Key volume A volume must be selected for this operation to succeed. FS=FS The type of the file system (FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, UDF, ReFS). 
REVISION=X.XX Specifies the file system revision (if applicable). RECOMMENDED If specified, use the recommended file system and revision instead of the default if a recommendation exists. The recommended file system (if one exists) is displayed by the FILESYSTEMS command. LABEL Specify the volume label. UNIT=N Overrides the default allocation unit size. Default settings are strongly recommended for general use. The default allocation unit size for a particular file system is displayed by the FILESYSTEMS command. NTFS compression is not supported for allocation unit sizes above 4096. QUICK Perform a quick format. COMPRESS Files created on the new volume will be compressed by default. NTFS only. OVERRIDE Force the file system to dismount first if necessary. All opened handles to the volume would no longer be valid. DUPLICATE UDF Only: This flag applies to UDF format, version 2.5 or higher. This flag instructs the format operation to duplicate the file system meta-data to a second set of sectors on the disk. The duplicate meta-data is used by applications, for example repair or recovery applications. If the primary meta-data sectors are found to be corrupted, the file system meta-data will be read from the duplicate sectors. NOWAIT Forces the command to return immediately while the format process is still in progress. If NOWAIT is not specified, DiskPart will display format progress in percentage. NOERR For scripting only. When an error is encountered, DiskPart continues to process commands as if the error did not occur. Without the NOERR parameter, an error causes DiskPart to exit with an error code.

Examples

FORMAT FS=NTFS LABEL=”SS64 Volume” QUICK COMPRESS
FORMAT RECOMMENDED OVERRIDE

“Successful people are successful because they form the habits of doing those things that failures don’t like to do” ~ Albert Gray.

Related commands

docs.microsoft.com – Configure UEFI/GPT-Based Hard Drive Partitions using Windows PE and DiskPart.
docs.microsoft.com – Configure BIOS/MBR-Based Hard Disk Partitions using Windows PE and DiskPart.
DISKPART – Disk Administration.
FORMAT – Format a disk.
Equivalent bash command (Linux): mkfs, in FreeBSD & OSX: newfs, fsck_exfat