▷ How to partition hard drive in windows 10

Creating partitions on a hard drive is very useful. Despite being a delicate topic and in which it is necessary to have some knowledge of what it means to create or delete these partitions, the truth is that Windows 10 makes it very easy for us. In this new step by step we will see how to partition Windows 10 hard drive.

Index of contents

Hard disk partitioning has almost always been reserved for users with rather advanced knowledge of hard disk usage. But currently anyone can do these actions and without the need to install external applications to Windows.

What is partitioning a hard drive

Normally a hard disk is presented to us as a unit with a specific amount of storage through an icon in our system. If the hard disk is 1 TB, the icon will show us a unit of that available capacity to be used in its entirety. In these types of units we will install our system and store our files all on the same unit together.

But not only can we have a hard disk of a certain capacity and the possibility of using all of it for one purpose. There will also be the possibility of dividing it into pates called volumes. What these parts do is divide the capacity of the hard disk into different pieces, so that in this way we can store files in one of these volumes and install the operating system in another. Visually we will be able to see it as if we had more than one hard disk, each one of them with different capacities and that in their totality add up to the real capacity of the disk.

Advantages of partitioning a hard drive

Regarding the advantages of partitioning a hard disk, we can mention the following:

• We can create a partition where we can put backup copies of our files or even the system. We can also create a partition protected by encryption for especially sensitive files that we have. They are also useful for storing certain types of files or for separating the system installation. operating our personal files or games.

After the theory comes practice, so we can get down to work on how to partition hard drive in Windows 10

Windows Disk Manager

Disk manager is the utility that Windows 10 implements to make the necessary modifications to our hard drives and storage units. To access the tool we will do the following:

• We go to the start menu and write "Create and format partitions of the hard disk" Our partition tool will appear as the first option, so we access it

Another simple way to access it will be through the system options menu.

• For this, we go over the start menu and right-click on it. In the list of options we will have to choose the options of "Disk manager"

In this way we will already have open our tool to work with it.

Partition hard drive in Windows 10 to a new hard drive

When we buy a hard drive, either SSD or ordinary, it comes raw almost every time. This means that when we install it on our computer, the operating system will not show it to us as an active drive for storage.

In principle we can think that Windows has not recognized it, but it is not. If we access the disk administrator tool we will see how all the units installed on our computer appear in the top list and among them will be the new hard disk.

What's more, when we open it, it will detect that a new raw disk exists through a window titled "Initialize disk".

In this window that appears, we will select our new hard disk "Disk 0" and select the MBR option for the partition style, since it is the most generic and compatible with other versions of Windows. Then click on "Accept"

The aspect that shows the tool with a hard disk for the system, an inserted USB key and the new raw drive is as follows:

Now what we will do is format the new album, which will be the one represented in black with the title “Not assigned”. For this we will do the following:

• Right-clicking on the black space, we choose the “New simple volume” option

• Now a wizard will open to format our hard disk. On the first screen click on "Next" and now a window will appear to assign a certain amount of space to the new volume that we are going to create. The new disk is 150 GB, so for now we are going to allocate a space of 80 GB to this new volume (we must write it in MB)

• Next , we must assign a unit for your label. Let's call it unit D

• The next thing will be to assign a file system, so we choose the option of "Format this volume with the following settings:" and we choose "NTFS". We also choose the quick format option and type a name for the volume. Then we click “Next”

In this way we have created a partition for our hard drive. If we notice, there is still a piece of unallocated space on this new hard drive (in black). To create a new volume with what we have left over, we follow the same procedure as before.

In this way we would obtain the following:

A hard drive with two partitions or volumes. Where we can store what we want.

Partition Windows 10 hard drive to an existing partition

Now we can assume that our hard drive has been installed for a while and we want to create new partitions or resize the ones we already have. For this example we are going to take the hard disk where the system is installed. The current status is this:

Reduce volume of a partition

When we already have partitions made, we can resize the existing ones using the "Reduce Volume" option. For this we right click on the partition that we want to resize and choose "Reduce volume".

Things to consider here:

• You can only reduce both the volume and free space left on the disk. The partition "Reserved for the system" should not be touched. We will not be able to increase the volume of a partition with the system installed after reducing it.

Once the option is chosen, the tool will calculate how much space we can save from the partition. In which case we can choose that value to reduce (not recommended) or a different one, leaving enough space for the system to install applications and others.

We are not going to make such a reduction, we have to leave enough space for the system. so we will choose a value LESS than that shown in the editable option. For example 80 GB

The end result will be a hard drive with a partition reserved for the system, a smaller one than the one where the system is installed and a free space to create a new partition.

To create a new one we follow the steps in the previous section

Increase volume of a partition

Now we are going to see another option, that of increasing the storage capacity of one of the partitions that we have. To do this, we are going to use the new hard disk that we installed in section 1. The initial state is the final result of section 1

Things to keep in mind:

• We must not touch the partition “Reserved for the system” We will not be able to increase the volume of a partition with the system installed Files from the deleted partitions will be lost

Well, to increase the volume of a partition before we will have two options: either reduce the volume of another existing partition (if you allow it) or delete an existing one (if you allow it). We will choose to reduce the volume of an existing one. We follow the steps in the previous section and we will have a lake like this:

Now we will increase the other partition, we choose from among the options the one of "Extend the volume"

A wizard will open in which it will show us what space we have available to extend. In this case it will be the 20 GB that are free from having reduced the previous partition.

We choose all the space and finish the wizard. Now we are shown a warning that our hard drive is going to become dynamic. This is because we have extended a partition to a storage space not contiguous to it.

For practical purposes, a dynamic hard drive is the same as a basic one, but it offers more possibilities in terms of partitions and cannot boot operating systems from these partitions.

In our case there is no problem in that the disk is dynamic, we accept the warning and we will have the following structure: A partition D: divided into two parts and another in the center E: In the file explorer we will only see them as two normal partitions.

Partition a removable storage drive

As with internal hard drives, we will also have the possibility to partition removable drives, such as external hard drives and USB drives. We will only have to follow the previous steps:

We choose “New Simple Volume” and we choose the amount of storage that the device will have, as well as a volume label.

Next, we must assign the file system type. In this case, being USB we choose FAT32.

Our USB drive would look like this:

We will have to take into account that in FAT 32 we will not be able to extend or reduce volumes.

This concludes our tutorial for partitioning Windows 10 hard disk. In future tutorial we will explore the other options available to us in this tool, which, although interesting, are not essential either.

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What are you waiting for to partition your hard drive? We hope that with this information you can do them perfectly. And be careful with your personal files!