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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Troubleshooting Disk Management

This lab discusses some common disk management procedures. You can use storage media such as CD-R, high capacity floppy, tape drive, DVD-R, or a secondary hard drive. Windows has a backup utility that can be used to schedule backups of your files.

It is also a good practice to clean unnecessary files off your hard drive. Windows has a utility called Disk Cleanup that can delete some of these files for you.

You might also find it necessary to compress files to save hard drive space. Windows has a built-in file compression utility, but there are many third-party utilities available as well.

For security reasons you might need to encrypt your files. The Encrypting File System (EFS) included with Microsoft Windows 2000 is based on public-key encryption. Each file is encrypted using a randomly generated file encryption key. Each file has a unique file encryption key, making it safe to rename. If you move a file from an encrypted folder to an unencrypted folder on the same drive, the file remains encrypted. If you copy an unencrypted file into an encrypted folder, the file remains unencrypted. You don't have to decrypt a file to open it and use it. EFS automatically detects an encrypted file and locates a user's file encryption key from the system's key store to open the file.

Resources

  • PC-compatible desktop/tower computer system—Customer supplied desktop/tower hardware system or Marcraft MC-8000 Computer Hardware Trainer or suitable PC hardware trainer with Windows 2000 installed

  • A blank 1.44MB floppy disk

Procedure

In this lab you will create, back up, restore, compress, and encrypt a WordPad Document. You will manage the resources on your computer, such as the disk drive, to optimally use space and resolve issues revolving around resource shortage.

  1. Disk Cleanup

    1. Boot the computer into Windows 2000.

    2. Choose Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools and select Disk Cleanup.

    3. When prompted to select the drive to clean up, select the C: drive and click OK. You will see a window similar to Figure 3.12 calculating the space to clean up.

    4. Figure 3.12Figure 3.12 Calculating cleanup space.

    5. After the calculation has completed, which may be time-consuming, record the entries in Files to Delete that have a check mark in Table 3.24.

    6. table 3.24Table 3.24

    7. Select Recycle Bin and Temporary Files by clicking in the box to the left of their respective icons. A check mark will appear.

    8. Click the More Options tab. You will see two areas: Windows Components and Installed Programs.

    9. Click the Clean Up button under Windows Components. You will see a window similar to Figure 3.13. You can check or uncheck items from this window to add or remove Windows Components. This window can also be accessed by clicking Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs.

    10. Figure 3.13Figure 3.13 Add/Remove Windows components.

    11. Click Cancel.

    12. Click OK to close the Disk Cleanup window for C:.

    13. Confirm the Are You Sure question by clicking Yes. You will see a window similar to Figure 3.14.

    14. Figure 3.14Figure 3.14 Cleaning up files.

    15. When the cleanup has completed close all windows.

  2. Create a file for backup.

    1. From the Windows 2000 desktop double-click on My Documents.

    2. Create a WordPad document by clicking File, New, WordPad Document.

    3. Type YourName as the name of the document.

    4. Close all windows.

  3. Backup

    1. Choose Start, Accessories, System Tools and then select Backup from the System Tools menu. You will see the Welcome screen.

    2. Click the Backup tab. You will see a window similar to Figure 3.15. From this area you can select drives or folders to back up one of the media types.

    3. Figure 3.15Figure 3.15 Select items to back up.

    4. In the left pane, click on System State to highlight it but do not place a check mark in the box next to it.

    5. Record the items that appear in the right-hand window pane in Table 3.25.

    6. table 3.25Table 3.25

    7. Click the MY DOCUMENTS folder and put a check mark in the box next to the icon. You will be able to do this backup on a floppy as long as the MY DOCUMENTS folder is small enough.

    8. Record the drive and filename of the backup (in the bottom left of the window) in Table 3.26.

    9. table 3.26Table 3.26

    10. Insert a blank floppy into the floppy drive.

    11. Click the Start Backup button. You will see a window similar to Figure 3.16.

    12. Figure 3.16Figure 3.16 Backup job information.

    13. Enter your name for the Backup description.

    14. Enter your name for the label to identify the media if it is overwritten.

    15. Click the Start Backup button. You will see a Backup Progress window.

    16. When it has completed, click Close.

    17. Close the Backup window.

  4. Delete a file.

    1. From the Windows 2000 desktop double-click the My Documents icon.

    2. Right-click on the document that you created earlier and select Delete.

    3. Confirm by clicking Yes.

    4. Close all windows.

  5. Restore the backup.

    1. Open the Windows Backup utility by choosing Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools and then selecting Backup. You will see the Welcome screen.

    2. Click the Restore tab.

    3. In the right windowpane, double-click File to expand it.

    4. Expand the Backup with Your Name on it by double-clicking it.

    5. Place a check mark next to the C: drive to restore the files that were backed up.

    6. Click the Start Restore button.

    7. Confirm Restoration by clicking OK. You will see a window similar to Figure 3.17.

    8. Figure 3.17Figure 3.17 Confirm Restoration dialog.

    9. Make sure the source file to back up has the correct filename and path, and click OK.

    10. After the restore has completed, click Close.

    11. Close all windows.

  6. Test the restoration.

    1. From the Windows 2000 desktop double-click on My Documents.

    2. Record your observations about the files in this folder in Table 3.27.

    table 3.27Table 3.27

    NOTE

    The remainder of this lab can be performed only if you have an NTFS partition on your hard disk.

  7. Compress a file.

    1. From the Windows 2000 desktop double-click on My Documents.

    2. Double-click on your WordPad document that was just restored.

    3. To add some size to the file, enter 10 lines of the character X with the keyboard. (You can hold down the key for one line, and copy and paste the rest.)

    4. Close the document. When prompted, click Yes to save the changes.

    5. Right-click on the document and choose Properties.

    6. Record its Size on Disk in Table 3.28.

    7. table 3.28Table 3.28

    8. Click the Advanced button. You will see a window similar to Figure 3.18.

    9. Figure 3.18Figure 3.18 The Advanced Attributes dialog.

    10. Select Compress Contents to Save Disk Space. Click OK.

    11. Click the Apply button.

    12. Record the new size on disk in Table 3.29.

    13. table 3.29Table 3.29

  8. Encrypt a file.

    1. From the properties of the document click the Advanced button again.

    2. Select Encrypt Contents to Secure Data, which will turn the compression option off.

    3. Click OK to close the Advanced Attributes window.

    4. Click OK to close the File Properties window. You will see a window similar to Figure 3.19.

    5. Figure 3.19Figure 3.19 The Encryption Warning dialog.

    6. Click the radio button next to Encrypt the File and the Parent Folder to select it and click OK.

    7. While the file is selected you will see Attributes: Encrypted in the right-hand portion of the My Documents window.

    8. Close all open windows, and shut down the computer.

What Did I Just Learn?

Maintaining storage devices and protecting data require additional skills. In this section, you examined ways to clean up drives, back up data, conserve space, and protect data. Each of these can be important aspects of managing storage devices. In this section, you learned to

  • Use Disk Cleanup

  • Back up a file

  • Restore a backup

  • Compress a file

  • Encrypt a file

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