{"id":243,"date":"2005-04-05T01:41:00","date_gmt":"2005-04-05T08:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kb.terabyteunlimited.com\/kb-articles\/how-to-create-a-partition-in-windows\/"},"modified":"2021-09-07T14:54:06","modified_gmt":"2021-09-07T21:54:06","slug":"how-to-create-a-partition-in-windows","status":"publish","type":"lsvr_kba","link":"https:\/\/www.terabyteunlimited.com\/kb\/kb-articles\/how-to-create-a-partition-in-windows\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Create a Partition in Windows"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>These instructions apply to the following versions of Windows:<\/p>\r\n  <ul>\r\n    <li>Windows NT<\/li>\r\n    <li>Windows 2000<\/li>\r\n    <li>Windows XP<\/li>\r\n    <li>Server 2003<\/li>\r\n    <li>Windows Vista<\/li>\r\n    <li>Windows 7<\/li>\r\n    <li>Windows 8.x<\/li><li>Windows 10<\/li>\r\n  <\/ul>\r\n  <p>Additionally, it is assumed&nbsp;that the disk is a Basic disk and not a Dynamic disk (the type of the disk is shown in Disk Management in the Type column). While the procedure for creating a standard partition (Simple Volume) on both types of disks is similar, Dynamic disks may require&nbsp;additional steps not covered in these instructions.<\/p>\r\n  <p><font color=\"#005858\"><strong>Creating a Partition<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\r\n  <ol>\r\n    <li>Access the <strong>Disk Management<\/strong> applet.&nbsp; There are several ways to do this:<br \/><br \/>\r\n      <ul type=\"disc\">\r\n        <li>Select <strong>Disk Management<\/strong> under the <strong>Administrative Tools<\/strong> menu, under the <strong>Start<\/strong> menu.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n        <li>Right-click the <strong>My Computer<\/strong> icon, select <strong>Manage<\/strong>, then select <strong>Disk Management<\/strong> from the tree that appears on the left.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n        <li>Click <strong>Start<\/strong>, right-click on <strong>My Computer<\/strong> (or <strong>Computer<\/strong>), select <strong>Manage<\/strong>, then select <strong>Disk Management<\/strong> from the tree that appears on the left.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n        <li>Click <strong>Start<\/strong>, then click <strong>Run<\/strong> (the Run box can also be opened by pressing <strong>WinKey + R<\/strong>).&nbsp; Type the following text in the <strong>Open:<\/strong> box that is displayed: <br \/><br \/><font color=\"#0000ff\">diskmgmt.msc<\/font><br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n        <li>Windows 8.x\/10: Press <strong>WinKey+X<\/strong> and click on <strong>Disk Management<\/strong> in the Quick Link menu. <\/li>\r\n      <\/ul>\r\n      <p>The <strong>Disk Management<\/strong> applet window appears and depicts all the drives visible to Windows.<br \/><\/p>\r\n    <\/li>\r\n    <li>If you haven't initialized the disk, Windows will ask you to do this first.&nbsp;Depending on the version of Windows, you will either get the <strong>Welcome to the Initialize and Convert Disk<\/strong> wizard or the&nbsp;<strong>Initialize Disk<\/strong> window (used in Windows Vista and later):<br \/><br \/>\r\n      <ul type=\"disc\">\r\n        <li><strong>Initialize and Convert Disk:<\/strong> Go through the wizard and permit it to select the disk to initialize. <font color=\"#ff0000\"><em>When you see the screen to select <strong>Disks to Convert<\/strong>, be sure to uncheck your disk, as this option converts your disk to a proprietary dynamic disk. <\/em><\/font>Finish the wizard and continue with the following steps.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n        <li><strong>Initialize Disk:<\/strong> The default <strong>MBR (Master Boot Record)<\/strong> partition style is usually the one desired, especially for drives under 2TB in size. The <strong>GPT (GUID Partition Table)<\/strong> partition style is recommended for drives larger than 2TB. Click the <strong>OK<\/strong> button to finish the process.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n      <\/ul>\r\n    <\/li>\r\n    <li>Locate the block of <strong>Unallocated<\/strong> space you wish to use to create a partition, right-click within it and select the <strong>New Partition... \/ New Simple Volume...<\/strong>&nbsp;menu item.&nbsp; The <strong>New Partition&nbsp;\/ New Simple Volume Wizard<\/strong>&nbsp;appears.<br \/><br \/>\r\n      <ul type=\"disc\">\r\n        <li>If you need to delete an existing partition to create unallocated space, right-click the desired partition and select the <strong>Delete Partition... \/ Delete Volume...<\/strong>&nbsp;menu item.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n      <\/ul>\r\n    <\/li>\r\n    <li>Click <strong>Next &gt;<\/strong> in the <strong>New Partition \/ New Simple Volume Wizard<\/strong>.&nbsp; The <strong>Select Partition Type<\/strong> window appears. <strong><font color=\"#ff0000\">Note:<\/font><\/strong> Windows Vista and&nbsp;Windows 7\/8.x\/10 will not let you select which type of partition to create (skip the next step).<br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n    <li>Select <strong>Primary partition<\/strong> if you wish to create a primary partition, or <strong>Extended partition<\/strong> if you will be adding one or more logical drives to the extended partition later.&nbsp; If you wish to add a logical drive to an existing extended partition, select <strong>Logical drive<\/strong>. <br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n    <li>Click <strong>Next &gt;<\/strong>.&nbsp; The <strong>Specify Partition\/Volume Size<\/strong> window appears.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n    <li>Enter a value for the <strong>Partition size in MB<\/strong>.&nbsp; The applicable <strong>Maximum disk space in megabytes (MB)<\/strong> and <strong>Minimum disk space in MB<\/strong> values will be shown.&nbsp; Click <strong>Next&nbsp;&gt;<\/strong>.&nbsp; The <strong>Assign Drive Letter or Path<\/strong> window appears.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n    <li>You have several options here:<br \/><br \/>\r\n      <ul type=\"disc\">\r\n        <li>Select the <strong>Assign the following drive letter<\/strong> option and choose a drive letter, if you wish to assign one.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n        <li>Select the <strong>Mount in the following empty NTFS folder<\/strong> option, if you want the new partition to be available under a folder on one of your existing drives.&nbsp; In this case, you will have to either manually type in the folder name or click the <strong>Browse...<\/strong> button and then create and\/or specify the folder that will be used for mounting the new partition.&nbsp; Please note that the FAT and FAT32 file systems do not support this functionality.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n        <li>Select the <strong>Do not assign a drive letter or drive path <\/strong>option if you do not want any letter or path assigned to the new partition at this point. <br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n      <\/ul>\r\n    <\/li>\r\n    <li>Click <strong>Next &gt;<\/strong>&nbsp;and the <strong>Format Partition<\/strong> window appears. In most cases, you will want to select NTFS for the <strong>File system<\/strong> and leave the <strong>Allocation unit size<\/strong> as Default. Type in a <strong>Volume label<\/strong> for the new partition (this will help you to identify the partition). If you don't want Windows to perform a full format (scan for bad sectors), check the <strong>Perform a quick format<\/strong> option. Please note that a full format can take a very long time on a large partition.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\r\n    <li>Click <strong>Next &gt;<\/strong>&nbsp;and then click&nbsp;<strong>Finish<\/strong> to create the partition.<br \/><\/li>\r\n  <\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These instructions apply to the following versions of Windows: Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP Server 2003 Windows Vista Windows 7 Windows 8.xWindows 10 Additionally, it is assumed&nbsp;that the disk is a Basic disk and not a Dynamic disk (the type of the disk is shown in Disk Management in the Type column). While the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"lsvr_kba_cat":[1780],"lsvr_kba_tag":[2127],"class_list":["post-243","lsvr_kba","type-lsvr_kba","status-publish","hentry","lsvr_kba_cat-windows","lsvr_kba_tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terabyteunlimited.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lsvr_kba\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terabyteunlimited.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lsvr_kba"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terabyteunlimited.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/lsvr_kba"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terabyteunlimited.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terabyteunlimited.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.terabyteunlimited.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lsvr_kba\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6126,"href":"https:\/\/www.terabyteunlimited.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lsvr_kba\/243\/revisions\/6126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terabyteunlimited.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"lsvr_kba_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terabyteunlimited.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lsvr_kba_cat?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"lsvr_kba_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terabyteunlimited.com\/kb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lsvr_kba_tag?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}