initialize a data disk whose size does not exceed 2 TiB on a Windows instance - Elastic Compute Service

Before you can store, read, and write data on a new data disk that is attached to a Windows Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance, you must initialize the disk. The initialization operations include bringing the disk online and partitioning and formatting the disk. This topic describes how to initialize a data disk whose size does not exceed 2 TiB on a Windows instance.

Prerequisites

A data disk is attached to an ECS instance. For more information, see Attach a data disk.

Background information

In the examples, an ECS instance and a data disk that have the configurations described in the following table are used. Operations may vary based on the actual condition.

Operating system	Resource	Description
Windows	Image used by the instance	Windows Server 2016 64-bit
Windows	Data disk	Disk name: Disk 1 Disk capacity: 40 GiB

Note

For information about how to initialize a disk that is larger than 2 TiB in size, see Initialize a data disk that is larger than 2 TiB in size.

Procedure

Connect to the ECS instance.
For more information, see Connect to a Windows instance by using a password or key.
On the Windows desktop, right-click the icon and then select Disk Management.
Find the data disk in the Offline state that you want to initialize. In this example, Disk 1 is used.
Right-click the blank area around Disk 1 and select Online.
When Disk 1 comes online, the disk enters the Not Initialized state.
Right-click the blank area around Disk 1 and select Initialize Disk.
In the Initialize Disk dialog box, select the disk, select a disk partition format, and then click OK.
Important
The size of a disk that uses the master boot record (MBR) partition format is capped at 2 TiB. If your disk is larger than 2 TiB in size or the disk may be resized to larger than 2 TiB, use the GUID partition table (GPT) partition format.
Right-click the Unallocated section of Disk 1 and select New Simple Volume.
In the New Simple Volume Wizard window, click Next and follow the wizard to perform initialization operations.
1. In the Specify Volume Size step, configure the Simple volume size in MB parameter and then click Next.
  If you want to create only a single primary partition on the disk, use the default value. You can also specify a simple volume size based on your business requirements to divide Disk 1 into multiple partitions.
2. In the Assign Drive Letter or Path step, select Assign the following drive letter, select a drive letter, and then click Next. In this example, the drive letter D is selected.
3. In the Format Partition step, select Format this volume with the following settings, configure formatting settings, and then click Next.
4. View the information about the new simple volume and click Finish to close the New Simple Volume Wizard window.

Result

The following figure shows the state of Disk 1 in the Disk Management window after the disk is initialized. 新磁盘状态

In This PC, you can find a new drive named New Volume (D:). The data disk is ready for use. 新建磁盘

References

For information about how to initialize a data disk that is larger than 2 TiB in size on a Windows ECS instance, see Initialize a data disk that is larger than 2 TiB in size.
For information about how to initialize a data disk whose size does not exceed 2 TiB on a Linux instance, see Initialize a data disk whose size does not exceed 2 TiB on a Linux instance.
For information about how to resize a disk, see Overview.