Practical Lab: Disk Management

Objective

Find out how the storage of your own PC is built: which disks it has, whether they use MBR or GPT, what partitions and volumes sit on them, how they are named, and which drivers run them. You only look. Nothing in this lab changes, formats or deletes anything.

Time: 25–30 minutes
You need: A Windows 10 or 11 PC. No extra software is required.

Safety rules for this lab

• Use only the commands written here. They all just read information.
• In diskpart, type only list disk, list volume and list partition. Never type clean, format, create, delete, convert, assign or remove. They can erase a whole disk with no undo.
• In Disk Management, do not right-click and choose any action. Just look.

What to Open

Part 1: Look at Disk Management

Open diskmgmt.msc. Compare it with Figure 20.1 in Section 2. Fill in:

1. How many disks (Disk 0, Disk 1...) are shown at the bottom? ________________
2. For Disk 0: its size and its type (Basic or Dynamic), and Online or Offline? ________________
3. List the partitions on Disk 0 from left to right with their sizes: ________________
4. Which partition says System, Boot or Page File in its status? ________________
5. Which partitions have no drive letter? ________________
6. Is there any black Unallocated space? ________________

Part 2: Ask PowerShell (Same Facts, Another Way)

Type each line and press Enter:

Get-Disk
Get-Partition
Get-Volume
Get-PhysicalDisk
Get-StoragePool

Now answer:

7. In Get-Disk, what is the PartitionStyle of Disk 0 (GPT or MBR)? ________________
8. In Get-Partition, what is the Type of the first partition (look for System or Reserved), and its size? ________________
9. In Get-Volume, which drive letter has the FileSystem FAT32, if any? (The EFI partition often has no letter and may not show.) ________________
10. In Get-PhysicalDisk, what are your disks' MediaType (SSD, HDD) and HealthStatus? ________________
11. In Get-StoragePool, which pools exist? (If you see only Primordial, you have not made a Storage Space.) ________________

Optional, to see a tidy table:

Get-Disk | Select-Object Number, FriendlyName, PartitionStyle, Size, OperationalStatus
Get-Partition | Select-Object DiskNumber, PartitionNumber, DriveLetter, Type, Size
Get-Volume | Select-Object DriveLetter, FileSystemLabel, FileSystem, HealthStatus, SizeRemaining, Size

Part 3: Identify MBR vs GPT with diskpart (Read-Only)

Open Command Prompt as administrator (diskpart needs it). Type:

diskpart
list disk
list volume
list partition
exit

(list partition works on the selected disk. If it complains that no disk is selected, that is fine; skip it. Do not type select followed by anything else.)

Look at the Gpt column of list disk: an asterisk (*) means the disk uses GPT. No asterisk means MBR.

12. Which disks have a * in the Gpt column? ________________
13. Does the list volume output show the same letters, labels and file systems as Get-Volume? ________________

Type exit to leave diskpart before doing anything else.

Part 4: See the Volume GUIDs with mountvol

In Command Prompt or PowerShell, type mountvol with no arguments and press Enter:

mountvol

It prints a short help text (do not copy any of those example commands), then lists volume GUID paths such as \\?\Volume{...}\. Under each one it shows where the volume is mounted: a drive letter, a folder, or the words "NOT MOUNTED" for volumes with no mount point.

14. How many volume GUID paths are listed? ________________
15. Which GUID is mounted at C:\? ________________ (just the first four characters)
16. Are there volumes listed with no letter or folder (the EFI or recovery partition)? ________________

Part 5: Which Drivers Run My Disks? (Device Manager)

Open Device Manager. Expand Disk drives and Storage controllers.

17. What disk names do you see under Disk drives? ________________
18. Which controllers are under Storage controllers (for example "Standard NVM Express Controller" or "Standard SATA AHCI Controller")? ________________
19. Right-click your storage controller, choose Properties → Driver → Driver Details. Is the driver file stornvme.sys or storahci.sys? ________________ (Just read, then close the window with Cancel.)

Part 6: Boot Mode and Disk Style (System Information)

In msinfo32, on the System Summary page:

20. BIOS Mode: ________________ (UEFI should match a GPT system disk.)

What Should Happen

• Part 1 and 2 show the same disks, partitions and volumes in a picture and as text.
• Part 3 shows a * for GPT disks. A modern PC booting in UEFI mode will have its system disk marked GPT.
• Part 4 shows each volume's permanent GUID name next to its letter or folder.
• Part 5 ties the stack of Section 6 to real driver names on your machine.

Interpretation Guide

Follow-Up Questions

1. Why does Disk Management show no letters for the EFI and recovery partitions?
2. If your system disk is GPT, which part of Section 3 tells you what is stored at the last sector of the disk?
3. Which driver file in Part 5 matches the interface of your system SSD, and which layer of the stack is it?
4. What would be the advantage of mounting a new drive at a folder instead of giving it a letter?
5. Name three facts from this lab that you could not learn by looking at the outside of the PC.