How can you view the details of a disk partition?

You’ve recently purchased a used hard drive to use in one of your desktop computers. After installing the drive, you notice that the drive has not been erased and it already has an existing partition. What Windows utility can you use to examine the details of the disk and its partitions?

A) Disk Management

B) CHKDSK

C) Device Manager

D) Event Viewer

The answer: A) Disk Management

There are a number of command line utilities that can help gather information about a hard drive, but the best option from these answers is the graphical Windows Disk Management utility.

The incorrect answers:

B) CHKDSK
The CHKDSK program is used to examine a drive for logical and physical errors.

C) Device Manager
The device manager can confirm the installation of the hard drive and display some hardware information, but it doesn’t show any detailed partition information.

D) Event Viewer
The event viewer would have messages if the disk wasn’t working properly, but it doesn’t display the disk details.

Want to know more? Watch “Working with Disk Partitions and File Systems.” Before you can use a disk in Windows, it must first be partitioned and formatted with an appropriate file system. In this video, you’ll learn how to partition a disk and understand which file systems are available for use in Windows.