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Display Name (?):

Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service

Short Name (?):

dmadmin

Executable (?):

dmadmin.exe

Library (?):

None.

Depends On (?):

Remote Procedure Call (RPC), Plug and Play, Logical Disk Manager

Supports (?):

None.

Description (?):

Configures hard disk drives and volumes. The service only runs for configuration processes and then stops.

OS (?):

2000 Professional, XP Home/Professional, Vista Home/Business, 2000 Server, Server 2003, Vista Server

Startup (?):

Default	Home	Workstation	Server	Minimal	Tweaked	Automatic
Manual	Manual	Manual	Manual	Manual	Disabled	Disabled

Explanation (?):

The logical disk manager administrative service is used to perform disk administrative services and should be considered an extension to the logical disk manager service. When required this service will activate and perform the require operations and then shut down. These tasks include formatting/partitioning disks, and converting a disk to be dynamic. This service will be activated by the logical disk manager whenever a new disk is inserted and when the Computer Manangement MMC snap-in is started.

If you're curious a dynamic disk is a specially configured drive that has been assigned to the logical disk manager. The usefulness of of a dynamic disk is that it allows you to expand the size of a disk if not all the free space of a drive is used up and it is claimed to be faster than a 'static' disk. The downside of this feature is that once altered to a dynamic disk a hard-drive cannot be reverted without wiping it, you cannot upgrade to other operating systems with it, you cannot install other operating systems on the drive, the drive must be manually mounted if used in another computer and any disk imaging utility (like Drive Image or Ghost) may have issues duplicating it.

Due to the nature of this service it is important that it should not be disabled as it may cause mount failures or disk management errors. Also, disabling this device is useless as it will not save any resources as it is started when required and terminated when not needed.