It’s not ab­solute­ly essential to partition hard drives anymore. Storage devices are now made so that they can be used straight out of the box. However, once you know how it works, par­ti­tion­ing can make it easier to manage your data and increase data security. You’ll need several par­ti­tions if you want to install various operating systems on a hard drive. Par­ti­tion­ing is rel­a­tive­ly easy with Windows 10. Even less ex­pe­ri­enced PC users can complete the necessary steps and then enjoy the ad­van­tages of an in­di­vid­u­al­ly con­fig­ured drive. Follow our step-by-step in­struc­tions to partition your hard drive in a few easy clicks.

$1 Domain Names – Register yours today!
  • Simple reg­is­tra­tion
  • Premium TLDs at great prices
  • 24/7 personal con­sul­tant included
  • Free privacy pro­tec­tion for eligible domains

Par­ti­tion­ing a hard drive – What does it mean?

Par­ti­tion­ing a hard drive shouldn’t be confused with for­mat­ting a hard drive. Whereas for­mat­ting a storage device involves equipping it with a file system like FAT 32 or NTFS, par­ti­tion­ing a hard drive involves dividing it into different sections. Each of these sections then contains related and con­sec­u­tive data blocks. Modern hard drives can be par­ti­tioned one or more times.

Par­ti­tions can take on various roles in a desktop system. A so-called primary partition is the logical part of a hard drive which an operating system can be booted from. Par­ti­tions can also be used to install several operating systems for a multi-boot system. With a so-called “extended partition”, you can exceed the limit of a storage device with Master Boot Record, which normally only allows four primary par­ti­tions.

It’s possible to ac­com­mo­date an operating system and all files with a single partition. This is not uncommon for new notebooks in factory condition. But in terms of data security, it’s better to use multiple par­ti­tions. One partition can then be used for the operating system (system partition) and another for larger sets of data (data partition).

It’s ben­e­fi­cial to your system’s data security that par­ti­tions operate as au­tonomous units. If, for example, the file system of a system partition is damaged (by a virus or bad sectors in the hard drive), there’s a good chance that the data on a separate partition can be saved. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, backups can take on a clearer structure when well thought out par­ti­tion­ing is used. The search for a specific file can happen more ef­fi­cient­ly if you’ve, for example, set up par­ti­tions for certain file types. Word files then end up in the partition for text files, images from your smart­phone camera are sorted into the partition for photos, and video files are stored in the partition for videos. You can also structure your hard drive into sections for work, free time, and family.

You can create par­ti­tions with special software (sometimes for a fee), which will give you access to a large range of features. But simple par­ti­tion­ing works just as well with the built-in tools of Windows 10. We’ll show you how to do it.

Note

Since Windows 7, hard drives can be par­ti­tioned while the system is in operation. Generally, this process doesn’t result in any data loss. However, par­ti­tion­ing a hard drive in Windows 10 requires far-reaching in­ter­fer­ence. If an already-existing volume is deleted, it might result in a loss of data. Thus, if there’s already data on your hard drive, it’s a good idea to back it up before par­ti­tion­ing.

How to partition your hard drive in Windows 10 – A step-by-step guide

In this tutorial, we assume that you’re using a brand new external hard drive. There shouldn’t be any data on the drive, and there should already be a basic partition labeled “External”. This storage area of about 465 GB will be further divided with a partition.

Tip

If the hard drive is already filled with data, your freedom in par­ti­tion­ing will be limited by the storage space that is already occupied. If you need more memory capacity for new par­ti­tions, you should clean up the storage devices that you’re using. When it comes to system hard drives that host Windows, you can empty the trash, delete un­nec­es­sary files, and uninstall unused programs.

Opening Disk Man­age­ment in Windows 10

Par­ti­tion­ing a hard drive isn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly difficult. You can easily do it yourself in just a few steps. To start, you’ll need to open Disk Man­age­ment in Windows 10:

  1. Press [Win] + [R] si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly
  2. Type “diskmgmt.msc” into the window (Marked 1 on graphic)
  3. Press [Enter] or click “OK” (Marked 2 on graphic)
Image: Run dialog box - Windows 10
Opening Disk Man­age­ment in Windows 10

Al­ter­na­tive­ly, you can open Disk Man­age­ment using the Windows symbol on the bottom left of the taskbar. Right-click on the Windows symbol and a menu will open. Choose “Disk Man­age­ment” from the menu.

Image: Opening Disk Management using the task bar
Opening Disk Man­age­ment using the Windows 10 task bar

Disk Man­age­ment will then open, in which all currently connected storage devices are listed. The Windows 10 partition shows up in the internal hierarchy as the first drive (Disk 0), which is typically labeled with “C:”. In addition to the system partition, there are may also be other par­ti­tions on the hard drive. Windows will au­to­mat­i­cal­ly assign a drive letter to them, which can be changed at any time if necessary.

Tip

The Disk Man­age­ment window will become a lot easier to manage if you dis­con­nect un­nec­es­sary external storage devices before par­ti­tion­ing and/or cut off the USB con­nec­tion between external storage devices and your computer before turning the computer on. This will help you avoid ac­ci­den­tal­ly deleting data.

Shrink volume

We want to give the new external hard drive (Disk 1/External) an ad­di­tion­al partition for data, which should be around 240 GB (=around 240,000 MB). To make space for the new partition, you’ll want to split the total volume of the disk (in this case around 465 GB) using the menu item “Shrink Volume”. You can get to this menu by right-clicking on Drive 1 (external).

Image: The standard view of Disk Management in Windows 10
Disk Man­age­ment lists all internal and external disks that are currently connected and offers various pos­si­bil­i­ties for par­ti­tion­ing and for­mat­ting hard drives.

Next, a window will open in which you can enter the amount of space to shrink (in this case around 240,000 MB). Below that, Windows shows the total size of the partition after shrinking (in this case around 236,000).

Image: Dialog box for shrinking
Use the Shrink dialog box to make space for a partition.

Windows usually shows the maximum amount of available disk space here. If the partition is smaller, this can be defined manually. If the new partition is smaller than suggested by Windows, it will result in unas­signed disk space. This can later be assigned (=par­ti­tioned).

After you’ve entered your preferred amount of space (see 1), click on the button “Shrink” (see 2). Then the window will close, and Disk Man­age­ment will show the partition. The final size of the new partition will differ slightly from what you entered in the Shrink window (in this case being around 235,000 MB instead of 236,000).

Create a new simple volume

The par­ti­tion­ing process isn’t over yet. To use the partition with Windows Explorer, you’ll have to assign the new storage area another volume with its own drive letter. To do this, right-click on the shaded (unas­signed) area and choose the entry “New Simple Volume” from the menu.

Image: Disk Management after shrinking
The Disk Man­age­ment window after shrinking

Next, the “New Simple Volume Wizard” will open. Click on “Next” to go to the next step.

Image: Welcome dialog in the New Simple Volume Wizard
The first thing you’ll see when defining a volume is this dialog box. Click on “Next” to continue the process.

In the next step, you can specify the size of the volume. If you want to assign the volume all the available disk space, you don’t have to change anything. But you can also set up several volumes/par­ti­tions; if you want to do this, enter a smaller value here (e.g., 120,000).

Image: Dialog box: Specify Volume Size
In this window, you can specify the size of the simple volume in MB. If you want to keep space for further par­ti­tions, change the value ac­cord­ing­ly. In the following steps, you can define ad­di­tion­al volumes.

Now it’s time to assign a drive letter. In this example, we chose the letter D from the list of sug­ges­tions (see 1). Letters that are already being used by other drives don’t appear in the list. (If necessary, though, you can switch out most letters in Disk Man­age­ment.) If you don’t change anything, Windows will use the pre-suggested letter. Once you’re done, click “Next” (see 2).

Image: Dialog box for assigning drive letter or path in the New Simple Volume Wizard
In this step, you’re asked to choose a drive letter from the list

The next step is to name the volume. We delete the default entry “Volume” and replace it with the name “Data” (see 1). It’s also possible to specify a different file system here. If you’re working with an internal hard drive or external storage device that primarily works with Windows PCs, you can stick with the preset NTFS file system. When you’re finished, click “Next”.

Image: Volume wizard - Format Partition box
In this step, the volume is given a name. The file system can also be changed here.

In the final step, all the settings that you’ve chosen and values that you’ve specified will show be shown. If every­thing there is correct, click on “Finish”.

Image: The final window of the New Simple Volume Wizard
In the final step, the wizard displays a summary of your input. If every­thing looks correct, click on “Finish”.

The wizard then closes, and you’ll end up back in the default Disk Man­age­ment window. You should see the result of the con­fig­u­ra­tion: The volume labeled “Data” was suc­cess­ful­ly set up. If necessary, you can further divide any of the volumes shown here.

Image: Standard Disk Management window after creating a volume
The result of the volume con­fig­u­ra­tion is shown in Disk Man­age­ment. The volume for data was suc­cess­ful­ly created.

Hard drive without par­ti­tion­ing

If your hard drive hasn’t been par­ti­tioned at all, Disk Man­age­ment will look as follows:

Image: An unformatted hard drive without a partition
A hard drive without a partition is rare but can easily be equipped with one or more volumes in Windows 10.

In this case, you can go directly to the section “Create a new simple volume” above and start the tutorial from there.

Note

Due to technical factors, problems or lim­i­ta­tions can come up when par­ti­tion­ing a hard drive. Some problems can be solved with special tools for par­ti­tion­ing. But sometimes you’ll have to undergo a com­pli­cat­ed re­for­mat­ting of the storage device to tackle the problem.

Go to Main Menu