How to properly add a new partition on a hard drive? How to create a new partition on your hard drive

09.04.2017

Despite the fact that I have switched to Linux for several years now, sometimes I still have to install Windows for my friends and relatives.

To partition a disk for working with the system, you can use the DiskPart utility.

DiskPart is a console utility with a command line interface for working with disks, partitions, and volumes. Developed by Microsoft for the Windows family of operating systems. Therefore, there should be much fewer problems, such as when using software from Acronis, or Paragon. Has many more features than the GUI-based Disk Management snap-in. You can also run DiskPart during the installation of Windows Vista/7/8, which will help in the future not to create an extra reserved partition of 100MB in size, which Windows creates automatically.

To open the console when starting the WIndows system installation mechanism, you must press the key combination Shift+F10.

Let's look at an example of partitioning a disk during the installation of Windows 7. If you do formatting using the Windows Setup Wizard itself, it creates a 100MB service partition, which is not needed by an ordinary user! Therefore, it is better to use the utility and partition the disks yourself and install Windows on an already formatted active partition of the priority hard drive. If there is only one hard drive in the computer, then it will have priority. If there are several of them, then it is recommended to disconnect the extra disks while installing Windows. Or set the priorities correctly in the BIOS (UEFI).

Let's consider a situation in which the disk is empty, there is no data on it, or it is not important and can be deleted.

So, to launch DiskPart during Windows installation, at the first stage press Shift+F10 and get into the cmd command shell. Launch the disk utility diskpart.

There is a help command in diskpart for general help, or for help on a specific command, use help command_name (for example, help clean).

Let's create a main partition for the system, and an extended partition in which there will be two logical partitions for data and for documents.

Let's look at the list of disks in the system:

Sel disk=system

or you can select the disk by number:

Sel disk N

Let's check that the correct disk has been selected:

or zeroing all sectors on the disk (the operation is very time-consuming - all sectors of the disk are written to zero)

Create part primary size=102400

Let's make it active (bootable):

Format fs=ntfs label=System quick

Let's create an extended partition for data and documents on the entire remaining disk space

Create part extended

Inside the extended partition, we will create a logical partition for data, 100 GB in size, for example, to store documents:

Create part logical size=102400

Let's format the partition in NTFS, assign the label "Docs", apply quick formatting:

Format fs=ntfs label=Docs quick

Let's connect this section to the system:

Let's create another logical disk, for example, to store media data for all the remaining free space:

Create part logic

Let's format (quickly) the partition in NTFS and assign the "Media" label to it:

Format fs=ntfs label=Media quick

Let's connect this section to the system:

Let's see what happened. The system should show all created partitions on the disk:

Detail disk

If everything is successful, exit diskpart and the console:

If you encounter any difficulties while working with the diskpart utility, you can always use the help of this utility. Here are some commands that may be useful:

To view the list of partitions, you need to run the command:

List part

You can select the desired section with the command:

Sel part N

You can delete the selected partition with the command:

Del part

That's all! But, my many years of work on Linux systems show that the era of Windows has already passed, although gamers can argue with me, because installing games here is still very problematic (I’m not into games, so this doesn’t worry me at all)

If you have one hard drive in your computer or laptop, then directly in Windows we can split it into partitions. That is, make sure that one disk is logically divided into several, for example, disk (C:), (D:), (E:) and so on. This procedure is called -.

This can be done with various programs, including standard Windows utilities, but I’m used to using Acronis Disk Director, so I will first show it using an example, and then describe the classic version.

To create a new partition on your hard drive you need to:

1. Take the required number of gigabytes from another disk
2. Create a new partition from unallocated space

Everything is automated in Acronis Disk Director. Launch it and decide on the disk from which you will take gigabytes. Now, to create a new partition on the hard drive, we need to right-click on this disk and select Split Volume.

You need to specify the size of the future volume! Here we simultaneously see the size of the source volume, that is, the partition from which we subtract several gigabytes. As soon as you indicated the size of the future volume, click OK.

Half the job is done. I see that I now have a 25 GB drive (H:), and a smaller gigabyte on the (D:) drive, but this is only the picture that shows what will happen in the end. We still need to save these changes. There is a button in the program for this Apply pending operations.

By clicking the button we will see exactly what actions will be performed. Please note that you will most likely need to restart your computer. Click Continue, closing all other programs in advance.

When I rebooted, I saw a black screen with white text, which meant that the program had worked. The PC rebooted again and when I logged in, I saw a new disk (H:) with 25 gigabytes.

Attention! During the process, you cannot restart the computer manually; wait until the program finishes.

This is how I usually partition my hard drive. But I should warn you that it is not recommended to perform such manipulations with disks in two cases.

1. If there is very little disk space left
2. If the hard drive is very old

2. Standard way to create a new partition

And if you don’t want to install separate programs, then I’ll now show you how you can create a partition on your hard drive with a standard program in Windows.

Go to Start and right-click on the computer and select Manage.

In the window that opens on the left, click on the link Disk management and on the right side of the window you will see your disks. Most often there is only one, and all the sections into which it is divided are indicated in a row. In my case, these are 3 sections. You may have one.

To you need to decide from which disk several gigabytes will be taken and right-click on it and select Shrink volume.

In the third field that opens, indicate how much you are reducing the disk. For example, 50,000 megabytes would be 50 gigabytes. Then click Compress.

This partition has shrunk and unallocated space has appeared. Click on it and select Create a simple volume.

We go through a simple procedure for creating a section. Click Next, specify the volume size, then assign any free letter to it, format it to NTFS fast and click Finish at the end.

As a result, we created a new partition (G:) on a 50 GB hard drive.

In this article I will tell you how to create a partition on a hard drive in windows 7.
Hard drive partition- This is part of the hard drive on which information can be stored. Partitions can be created, compressed, formatted, deleted. A partition is created to separate user files from operating system files. Typically, it is enough to have two hard drive partitions on your computer: Local Disk C and Local Disk D.

On Local Drive CWindows operating system files are stored, as well as installed programs. On another partition of your hard drive (it may be called differently) you can store your important documents, programs, photos, videos, music. If the operating system fails, the data on this local drive will be saved, since the system will be reinstalled on Local Drive C.

Earlier partition the hard drive It was only possible using third party programs. For example Partition Magic, Acronis Disc Director. Now, with the advent of new operating systems, this procedure can be done using the built-in tools of Windows 7.

So let's get started creating a partition on your hard drive in windows 7. To do this, you need to follow the following instructions.

Step 1 . Right-click on the My Computer icon and select Manage from the context menu.

Step 3. Next, click on Local drive C or another drive that you want to compress (If you have only one hard drive C, then you have no choice, you will have to compress it; if there are other partitions, then the choice is yours from which drive you want to “take away” the memory). Compressing the disk is necessary to provide free space for creating a new partition. In the context menu window that appears, click Shrink Volume...

Step 4. The process will begin to determine the available space for compression. You'll have to wait a little... After a few seconds, a dialog box will appear in which you need to configure drive C for compression.

In field Compressible space size (MB) indicate the size by how much you need to compress the disk. (The compressed size is the size of the future partition being created). After you calculate what size you need, click the button Compress.

A simple volume can only reside on one disk.

Step 6. Next you need specify the size of the partition to be created. In line Simple volume size enter the maximum size in M.B. or leave it as is (by default, the maximum size is indicated in the simple volume size field).
Click to continue Further.

Step 8. In a new window you have to perform. Formatting is the process of creating a file system. It is also necessary to save data on this partition.

Select the radio button in the section Format this volume as follows and select:

- File system - FAT or NTFS. Choose NTFS.
- Cluster size- the choice of cluster size depends on what files you will store on the disk, if the files are not large, then choose a small cluster, if the files are large, for example photos, videos, music, then choose a larger cluster.
- Volume Label- enter the name of the disc (for example: music, video, photos, programs, documents, etc.).

Uncheck the boxes Quick formatting And Compress folders and files. Click to continue Further.

Step 10. Once the formatting process is complete, a new primary partition will be created, highlighted in blue.

That's all, new partition in windows 7 operating system created. Go to My computer. In chapter Hard disks you will see the created partition. You can start filling it with information.

Often, when buying a new computer, we are faced with the problem that only one volume has been created on the hard drive, a local disk in other words. To avoid such inconveniences, you can divide one volume into several, the main thing is to know what needs to be done and where. Today, we will try to figure out how you can make two, three or more local disks on your computer.

How to create an additional local disk?

Follow the following algorithm and you will definitely be able to create additional local disks.

Let's get started!

1. Open the “Control Panel”, then go to the following items - “System and Security” - “Administration” - “Computer Management” - “Storage Devices” - “Disk Management”.

2. Let's turn our attention to the lower part of the window that opens, we see a list of already created volumes, as well as those that can be created, they are indicated by a black stripe.

3. To create a new local disk, select one of the empty disks and right-click on the black line. Then select “Create a simple volume”.

4. We immediately see how the “Create a Simple Volume Wizard” opens, click next and move on to the next item.

5. In a new window we see all the available memory; in the empty window we enter the amount of memory we need. The maximum and minimum size is indicated at the top, we need to select a number from this range. Click “Next”.

6. Now we need to select a letter that will be assigned above this drive. After selecting a letter, click “Next”.

7. In this window we need to specify the file system, as well as the cluster size. We recommend using the following data - the NTFS file system and the default cluster size. The volume label is its name; here we write whatever we want. You should also click “Quick Format” to speed up the formatting process that will occur when creating a disk. Click “Next”.

8. A window opens where we must check that the information entered is correct. If everything is written correctly, click “Done”.

Hello! I’ll probably start from the very beginning, and if you’re not very interested, and you know why this article was written, then you can safely move on to the next heading, lower on the page. I decided to install Windows 8, I want to test the new system, and I haven’t written instructions for installing Windows 8 on the blog yet. I don’t really want to install it on a virtual machine; I want to demonstrate to my blog visitors the actual installation on a real computer. Everything would be fine, but I’m not ready to give up Windows 7 yet, especially since there are not very good reviews floating around the Internet about the eight, and if people say it, then most likely it’s true :).

So I decided to install Windows 8 on one computer next to Windows 7. I think I’ll see what happens, and then if I like the eight, I can install it instead of the seven. There is only one little thing left, you need to create a partition on your hard drive to install Windows 8 as a second system. This is not even a problem, I thought about taking a boot disk from Acronis Disk Director, take some space from the local drive D and create a partition for Windows 8.

But then I realized that not everyone who reads my blog, in particular this article, has a ready-made boot disk with Acronis Disk Director. Therefore, I decided to write an article in which I will tell in detail and with pictures how to create a partition on your hard drive in Windows 7, we will do all this from the working system using a standard utility “Disk Management”.

I need to create another partition on my hard drive to install a second operating system. You may have another reason, for example, you installed Windows and, being lazy, made only one system drive C, for which all the hard drive memory was allocated. I've encountered this and it's very inconvenient. Therefore, in this way you can take some memory from a single partition and create one or two more local drives for storing photos, videos, etc.

How to create a partition on a hard drive under Windows?

As I wrote above, we will create another local disk using the utility “Disk Management”, first we need to launch it. We go to “Start”, "Control Panel", select "Administration", a window will open in which you can run “Computer Management”. In the window that opens, on the left you need to select “Disk Management”. Wait a moment while the system collects information about the partitions on your hard drive.

After loading the information, we will see our entire hard drive and the partitions that have already been created. This means we need to create another partition, but I only have 47 MB ​​of free memory (see the picture below, light green area). This means we need to take some space from one of the already created partitions, look at which we have the most free space, select it, right-click and select “Shrink Volume...”. As you can see, I selected local drive D for compression.

You need to wait a little while Windows 7 determines how much space can be squeezed out of this partition :).

A window will appear in which you can see the total size of the partition before compression, and how much space is available for compression. In my case, the maximum I could take from drive D was 20,140 MB, which is great for Windows 8. But you can specify how much space you want to take from a specific local drive. Click “Compress”.

We wait a little and look at the table again. As you can see, the area with free memory (light green area) has increased. You can create a partition from this free area. Right click on it and select “Create a simple volume...”.

The Create Simple Volume Wizard opens. Click “Next”.

Based on the free area, the system will show us the maximum and minimum size of the partition to be created. And it will ask you to enter the size for the new partition. For the new logical drive, I used all the free memory, so I just clicked “Next”.

Next we need to assign a letter to the disk being created. Therefore, we leave the mark opposite “Assign a drive letter” and choose a letter, or you can leave it as a prepositional system. Click the “Next” button.

The next stage is formatting the partition. I advise you to immediately format the local disk. Against "File system" I advise you to install NTFS, “Cluster size” We leave it as default. Where “Volume Label” we indicate any name, since I am creating a partition for installing Windows 8, I named it that way. Check mark opposite “Quick Format” and click “Next”.

We check the information and click “Finish”.

All is ready! I now have another logical partition “H” called “Windows 8”. Now you can install an operating system on it, or simply save information.

If you go to "My computer", then you can see the partition we created, even without any reboots.

Conclusion

To be honest, this was the first time I created a new partition on a hard drive using a standard tool in Windows 7. Usually I always use a boot disk or a standard manager during the installation of the operating system.

But if you are running Windows 7, and you just need to create another partition and take some memory from the existing one, then all this can be done in a few minutes using the method described above, and there is no point in downloading and burning all sorts of boot disk images.

I wrote about how to increase one logical partition at the expense of another using a boot disk in an article, read it, it might come in handy. Here is another article on the topic of partitioning a new hard drive during the installation of an operating system.

Perhaps someone will say that this method is bad, and it is best to create new partitions using special programs. This is not true, I did not have a single problem either when creating or using this section. I installed Windows 8 on it next to the already installed Windows 7 without any problems, but this is a topic for the next article. Good luck friends!

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Create a partition on your hard drive using a standard tool in Windows 7 updated: February 14, 2013 by: admin