When you buy a branded Windows computer, you will typically find a single partition (the C: drive) that has the operating system and other programs installed on it. Sometimes, there may be another partition for recovery purposes, but otherwise, manufacturers don’t partition the hard disk by default.
What is a disk partition in Windows?
Under Windows:
A partition, also sometimes called a volume, is an area on a hard disk that can be formatted using the file system and identified by a letter of the alphabet. For example, the C drive on most Windows computers is a partition.
Simply put, if your hard disk is a bookshelf then the partitions are the different shelves on which data is stored.
Why you should create partition
Managing all data on an existing partition or C drive is not wise because the C drive contains all the important Windows and program folders. So if anything corrupts the operating system it will also jeopardize your data.
Also, managing files and folders on one partition is cumbersome. And if it comes to formatting the computer, there is no option to move the data to another partition to save it from being deleted (an external media is required to save all the important data).
Some suggestions before you create the partition
1. Do not use the primary partition containing your operating system to store important data. It should be smaller in size than other partitions you create. For example, if you have 250 GB of memory, allocate about 40 GB to the C: drive (assuming you have Vista/Windows 7…if you have XP then 20 GB should be enough).
2. Create another partition that you will use to store important files. This can take up the maximum amount of space on the hard disk.
3. Keep your main partition tidy and clean. Use tools like Revo Uninstaller to uninstall useless applications and Ccleaner to clean.
So now that you’re sure you should partition your hard disk into more drives, check out the inbuilt Windows Disk Management console to help you with that task.
How to Partition Your Hard Disk in Windows
You can create disk partitions with the help of Disk Management console. You can create as many partitions as you want.
Here is a step-by-step guide to creating partitions on your computer’s hard disk using the Disk Management console:
Click Start Windows
button. Type
Computer Management
in a search box.
Click the Disk Management option on the left panel. It will load disk configuration information
All information of the partitions in your computer will be displayed on the right hand side.
Right click on the partition you want to shrink. Click Minimize Volume.
Note that you can only shrink a partition if it has enough free space. And you should always make sure that a partition has some space to hold more data. Shrinking the space by 5GB means that the new partition size will be 5GB smaller than the previous size.
You can see in the image below that 5 GB is shown as unallocated space. Note the new size of drive D. It is now 85.57 GB from 90.54 GB.
You can create a new partition of this unallocated disk space by right-clicking on it and selecting New Simple Volume from the menu.
Click the Next button.
Now choose the size of the disk. You can allocate all unallocated space i.e 5000 MB.
Assign a letter to a drive from the drop-down list.
Format the drive using the NTFS file system. Check Do a quick format select. Click the Next button.
Click the Finish button. It will create a new partition on your hard disk.
How to expand disk space in Windows
You can also extend the volume of any partition by right-clicking on the partition and selecting the Extend Volume option from the menu. In the Expand Volume Window, click the Next button.
You can now expand your disk space by allocating unallocated disk space. In the above example, we have 5000 MB of unallocated space, so we can make it available to expand the disk size. After selecting the capacity, click the Next button.
You can double check that the size of drive D is 90.45 GB. So in this way the disk space will be expanded.
So that’s how to shrink the volume, create a new volume from the unallocated volume, and add that unallocated volume to the previous volume to expand it.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
