3 Simple Ways to View Partitions (2024)

When you install Windows on a new hard drive, the installer sees your disk as a large amount of unallocated space. You need to create a partition so that the operating system understands which parts of the disk it can access. This is called partitioning. After you format a partition with a specific file system, the operating system can use it, and you have a volume.

In order to make the most of each partition, you first need to know how to view them. If you're unsure, keep scrolling to see how to do this with File Explorer, Disk Management, and third-party partition tools.

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Top 8 Free Disk Management Tools for Windows 10/8/7

Here are 8 best free partition managers and tools for Windows 10, 8.1, 8 and 7. With these great Windows disk partition management utilities, you can shrink, extend, merge, and split partitions for free.

This is usually done by checking the partitions through the Windows Explorer.

When you purchase a new business computer and browse through the files in File Explorer, you might notice drive letters like C:, D:, and E:. While these drive letters may refer to physical internal or external hard drives, they can also refer to partitions. People often divide hard drives into smaller partitions so that they can install different operating systems on them (this is called disk partitioning). You can check your partitions by accessing the File Explorer window.

Let's see how to check the partition using Windows Explorer.

Step 1: First, open File Explorer by pressing the Windows + E keys.

Step 2: Then, you can view the partition size for each hard drive as shown in the image below.

• Visible content: Can see only the partitions and their sizes.
• Invisible content: Users cannot view all available disks.

Another way to view disk partitions for free is with the Windows Disk Management utility.

Another way to view partitions is through Disk Management. To view internal/external hard drives, scroll down and look at all the steps.

Step 1: Press the Windows key + R on your keyboard. Type "diskmgmt.msc" and press Enter to launch the Windows Disk Management tool.

Step 2: After opening Disk Management, you can see all the hard disk/partition of external drives as shown in the picture.

• Visible content: Through Disk Management, users can see all disks and partitions, along with their file systems, types, and statuses. It also shows partitions labeled as RAW or Unallocated.
• Invisible content: Hidden, lost, or deleted files are not visible.

## View, Unhide, or Restore Hard Drive Partitions

Now you know how to view hard drive partitions with File Explorer and Disk Management. But what if you want to view lost, hidden, or deleted partitions? Don't worry – with a third-party partition manager, you can easily view all types of partitions on any disk. If you're wondering which tool has all these features, we recommend the tools Partition Master utility.

Partition Master is the most powerful and feature-packed partition viewer/checker around, displaying all the information you could want to know about:

• Check the size of the entire hard disk.
• Check partitions in different statuses, such as Recovery Partition, OEM partition, System Reserved Partition, RAW partition, unallocated space, etc.
• The Unhide feature allows you to view hidden partitions.
• The Partition Recovery feature enables you to retrieve lost or deleted partitions.

How to view hidden, lost or deleted partitions with Partition Master Tool

Step 1: Launch Partition Master and click “Partition Recovery”. Select the target hard disk where the lost partition was and then click “Quick Scan”.

Step 2: Be patient and wait for the software to perform the “Quick Scan” and “Deep Scan.” It will mark your deleted partition as “Lost,” under the “Status” column. Select the lost partition, then click “Recover.”

You can also double-click on the partition to preview its content, and then click “OK” to confirm.

Step 3. Wait for the partition recovery to complete and then click “Finish”.

Conclusions

We've looked at different ways to view partitions. Overall, if you want to view, unhide, or recover partitions without losing data, we recommend using the Partition Master tool. It's great for people who like to tinker with their computers.