How to Partition A Hard Drive in Windows 11/10 [2024 New]

Applies to: Run disk partitioning for free on Windows 8.1/8/7/XP/Vista, even Windows Server computers.

Disk Partition Guide: 2 Ways to Partition Hard Drive in Windows 11/10

Are you looking for a reliable solution to perform disk partitioning or create partitions in Windows 11/10/8/7? On this page, we've gathered two practical solutions to help you free partition hard drive in Windows 11/10.

Method 1: Partition a Hard Drive Using Disk Management

Tip: The solution below also applies to the question "How to partition C drive without formatting in Windows 11/10". Just replace the target drive in the example with C drive and proceed with partitioning the hard disk using Disk Management:

Step 1: Right-click the Start button and select Disk Management.

Please check if you have unallocated space on your computer's hard drive. If you don't, follow our guide step by step. If you do, you can skip to Step 4 and continue from there.

2. Right-click on the hard drive partition you want to compress and select “Shrink Volume.”

Step 3: Type in the amount of space you want to shrink in MB, then click on the "Shrink" button.

When it's done, you'll have an unmounted volume.

Step 4: Right-click on the “Unallocated” space on your hard drive, and select “New Simple Volume.”

Step 5. Click Next on the New Simple Volume Wizard screen.

Step 6. Specify the size of the volume you want to create in MB, or accept the default, and then choose Next.

Step 7: Accept the default drive letter, or choose a different one for the partition, and click “Next.”

Step 8: Select NTFS as the default file system and click Next to format the drive.

Step 9. Click on “Finish” to create a new partition in Windows 11/10.

Click “Finish”.

In short, you can create a partition from unpartitioned space by following these steps:

1. Right-click "This PC" and select "Manage." 2. Next, open "Disk Management." 3. Choose the disk you want to partition. 4. Right-click the "Unallocated" space in the lower pane, then select "New Simple Volume." 5. Specify the volume size and click "Next" to finish.

Method 2: Run Disk Partition with a Free Partition Manager

For some beginners, managing disk partitions in Windows 11/10 with Disk Management might seem a bit complicated. A smarter solution is to resort to a third-party free partition manager, such as Partition Master Free, and the like.

Download a partition manager and use it to create a partition in Windows 11/10:

Steps to partition a hard drive (and create partitions) in Windows 11/10 using a partitioning tool:

Step 1: Run Partition Master and check the available space in the "Partition Management" section.

• If you have unallocated space on your hard drive, skip to Step 3 to create the partition. • If you do not have any unallocated space, continue to Step 2.

Step 2. Shrink the partition to create unallocated space.

Right-click on the target disk partition with enough free space, and select “Resize/Move”.

Next up, we just need the translation for American English:

Then, you can drag the partition to the left or right to shrink its size and free up enough unallocated space. You'll see how much space you've reduced in the "Size" area. Click "OK."

Click “Perform XX Task” and then “Apply” to save all the changes.

Back in the Disk Management tool, you should see the unallocated space on the same disk, and you can proceed to create a new partition on your hard drive.

Step 3. Create a new partition on the target drive to use the unallocated space.

Right-click the unallocated space, and then select "New".

Create partition step 1

Customize the partition size, drive letter, volume label, and file system (NTFS, FAT32, EXT2/3/4, exFAT) in the "Advanced Options". Click "OK" when you're done.

Create Partition Step 2

Finally, click “Execute tasks” and “Apply” to create the partition with the unallocated space on your disk. Repeat these steps to partition a hard drive for more partitions.

Video Tutorial: More Tips on How to Partition a Hard Drive in Windows 11/10 [UTF-8]

For more disk partition tips, watch this video tutorial and use the free partition manager to partition a hard drive in Windows 11/10 yourself, including expanding, shrinking, creating, and deleting partitions.

Additional Tip: How to Format a Partition (Volume) in Windows 11/10

Microsoft Support also recommends formatting the partition to free up more space. If you need to format an existing partition or change the volume format to a new file system, try the following steps:

Step 1: Press Windows+R to open the “Run” box, type diskmgmt.msc, and then press Enter.

Step 2: Right-click the volume you want to format, and select "Format."

Step 3. To format the volume using the default settings (as NTFS), click "OK" in the "Format" dialog box, and then click "OK" again. You can help more users discover this complete tutorial by clicking on the button below.

The advantages of disk partitioning in Windows 11/10.

For most Windows users, only a few are aware of the necessity and benefits of partitioning disks in Windows 11/10/8/7. Let's explore the advantages of partitioning your hard drive on your computer.

**Advantages of Partitioning a Hard Drive and Disadvantages of Not Doing So**

How many partitions can be created on a hard drive:

• On an MBR disk, you can create up to 4 partitions – 3 primary + 1 extended, or 4 primary.
• On a GPT disk, you can create as many partitions as you want, the number of partitions is unlimited.
• For MBR users who need to create 5 or more partitions, you have to convert MBR to GPT.

Related Reading: How to Repartition Hard Drive

"Disk Partitioning in Windows 10/11"

On this page, we discuss how to partition a hard drive in Windows 11/10. Depending on your needs, we introduce two popular disk partition tools for Windows 11/10 users, including the built-in Disk Management tool and Partition Master Free.

For beginners, the free partition manager – AOMEI Partition Assistant Free is a more flexible option for managing hard disk partitions in Windows 11/10/8/7.

We also talked about the need to partition your disk, especially for Windows users, in order to keep your operating system, personal files, and data from other programs safe.