Creating logical drives in windows 7. How to create a partition on a hard disk? Video: How to Hide a System Reserved Volume

05.03.2020 Windows 7, XP

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

On Local Drive C the files of the windows operating system are stored, as well as the installed programs. On another section of the hard disk (it may be called differently for you), you can store your important documents, programs, photos, videos, music. In the event of a failure of the operating system, the data on this local disk will be saved, since the system will be reinstalled on the Local disk C.

Previously, partitioning a hard drive was possible only with the help of 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 start creating a partition on your hard drive. To do this, you need to follow the instructions below.

Step 1 ... Right click on the icon of my Computer and from the context menu select Control.

Step 2. In snap in section Storage devices choose Disk management.

Step 3 ... Next, click onLocal drive C or another disk you want to compress (If you have only one hard drive C, then you have no choice but 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 a new partition for creation. In the context menu window that appears, click Shrink Volume ...

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

In field specify the size by how much you want to compress the disk. (The compressed size is the size of the future partition to be created). After you calculate what size you need press the button Shrink.

Step 5. After the completion of the compression process, an unallocated black section will appear. Right-click on it and click Create simple volume...
Then a window will appear Simple Volume Wizard to help you create a simple disk volume.

A simple volume can reside on only one disk.

Press the button to continue. Further.

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

Step 7... In the next window Simple Volume Wizards assign a drive letter to the partition from A-Z by clicking on the drop-down list (indicated by the arrow), and then click Further.

Step 8... In a new window, you have to complete.

In order to save data on this partition, it must first be formatted.Formatting is the process of creating a file system.

Set the switch in the section Format this volume as follows and select:

Create a simple volume using Disk Management.

Start Disk Management.
Start the "New Simple Volume" wizard on Disk 2.
Size the volume to 100MB and label the volume as "Simple".

Create a simple volume using Diskpart.exe.

Start Command Prompt.
Run diskpart.exe and use the following commands to create a simple volume:

list disk
select disk 3
create partition primary size = 100
list partition
select partition 2
format fs = ntfs label = simple2 quick
assign.

In this beginner's guide, we'll take a look at how to split (split) and merge hard drive partitions in Windows 10 using the built-in snap-in.

Sometimes you just need to create, delete or modify disk partitions in Windows 10. If you have only one disk and you would not like to keep operating system files and your files on the same disk, creating logical disks will help you. Each of the logical disk partitions can have its own file system and will allow multiple operating systems to boot from one hard disk. In this guide, I will show you how to manage disk partitions in Windows 10 simply using a snap.

For the convenience of the readers, this guide is divided into two parts. The first part will show you how to divide your hard drive into two partitions and assign a drive letter to the newly created volume.

In the second part, we will delete the new volume and consolidate the reclaimed space, returning it back to the original size of the C: drive. So let's get started ...

How to split and merge disk partitions in Windows 10

Part 1 - splitting and creating a new disk partition

In the first half of this tutorial, we will see how to split the existing disk space into two partitions. Let's say you bought a new Windows 10 PC and disk size C: is 500 GB. Obviously Windows will already be installed on the disk C:... But there comes a point when you need to move some of your data to some other disk. Or in another case, you want to create a new partition to boot a different operating system. You need to create a new partition by partitioning the disk WITH into two parts. Here's what you need to do:

To open the snap - Click Win + R and in the window line Run and enter. Click on OK or Enter .

In the window, right-click on the partition of the disk you want to partition and select Shrink volume... In my case, this is a disk WITH:

Then in the window that appears in the line Compressible space size (MB) enter the desired size of the disk to be created. I indicated 26000 (MB) (this is about a sixth of the capacity of my hard drive) It will be about 25 GB in size. In other words, you will get this size from an existing partition if there is free space on it, and then click Shrink.

In a few seconds, and you will see the area you have freed up for the future disk partition with a mark, the same space will be taken away from the existing disk partition WITH:.

So the drive WITH: divided into two volumes. Right-click on the unallocated space and in the context menu click Create simple volume, will automatically start

In the window Volume Size Specification you can change the size of the created size by clicking Further.

In the next window, set the letter of the new disk partition and click Further

Now you need to format the disk, there is no need to change the default settings here.

If your plans include installing a new OS on this disk, make sure Apply file and folder compression is not enabled otherwise you will face an error while installing the OS - Windows cannot be installed because this computer uses compressed….

The wizard exits by showing you a summary of the information. Click the button.

The created logical drive will appear in the snap-in window and Windows 10 Explorer, ready to use.

Part 2 - Merging Disk Volumes

You may need to merge disk volumes by returning the disk WITH: previously selected space for disk Z:

Here's how to do it:

1. Open Select the disk partition you want to merge and right-click on it by selecting from the context menu Delete volume... This will remove the drive letter and partition.

Note:This will also delete all data in the disk partition (In my case, from the Z: drive, I previously transferred all the necessary information to another disk).

Click on Yes to confirm the deletion of the volume.

2. After the disk partition Z: will be deleted, you will see the disk partition marked with. Now right click on the volume of the disk with which you want to merge the unallocated capacity ( in this case it is a disk WITH: ) and select Expand volume.

3. In the opened wizard window Press the button Further:

4. Then on the next screen. Just confirm the size by clicking Further.

5. Click the button.

6. Now you will see that the size of the disk selected for expansion has increased due to Unallocated volume.

That's all about Merging Disk Volumes in Windows 10!

Hey! I'll probably start from the very beginning, but if you are not very interested, and you know why this article was written, then you can safely move on to the next heading, below on the page. I decided to install Windows 8, I want to test the new system, and I have not yet written the instructions for installing Windows 8 on the blog. I don't really want to install on a virtual machine, I want to demonstrate to my blog visitors a real installation on a real computer. Everything would be fine, but I'm not ready to give up Windows 7 yet, especially since not very good reviews are circulating on the network about the eight, and if people say, 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 and how, and then if you like the eight you 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. It's not even a problem, I thought to take a boot disk with 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 bootable disk with Acronis Disk Director. Therefore, I decided to write an article in which to tell in detail and with pictures how to create a partition on a hard drive in Windows 7, we will do all this from the working system with the 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 was too lazy to make only one system drive C, under which all the hard disk memory was allocated. I've met with this, and it's very inconvenient. Therefore, in this way, you can take some memory from a single partition and create another, or two, local drives for storing photos, videos, etc.

How to create a partition on a hard disk from under Windows?

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

After downloading the information, we will see our entire hard drive and partitions that have already been created. So we need to create another partition, but I have only 47 MB of free memory (see below in the picture, light green area). So you need to take a little 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 have selected local disk D for compression.

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

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, as much as possible from the D drive, you could take 20140 MB, which is fine for Windows 8. But you can prescribe yourself how much space you want to take from a specific local disk. Click "Compress".

We wait a bit and look at the table again. As you can see, the area with free memory (light green area) has increased. A section can be created from this free area. Right click on it and select "Create Simple Volume ...".

The wizard for creating a simple volume will open. 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 prompt you to enter the size for the new section. 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 created disk. Therefore, we leave a mark opposite "Assign drive letter" and choose a letter, or you can leave the prepositional system. We press the button "Next".

The next step is formatting the section. I advise you to format your local drive right away. Against "File system" I advise you to install NTFS, "Cluster size" we leave it by default. Where “Volume label” we indicate any name, since I am creating a partition for installing Windows 8, I called it that. Checkmark opposite "Quick Format" and click "Next".

We check the information and click “Finish”.

Everything is ready! I 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 section we created, even without any reboots.

Conclusion

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

But if your Windows 7 is running, 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 in the manner described above, and there is no point in downloading and burning all sorts of boot disk images there.

I wrote about how to increase one logical partition at the expense of another using a boot disk in the article, read it, it may come in handy. Here is another article on the topic of splitting a new hard drive during the installation process of the 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 the case, I did not have a single problem either when creating or using this section. I installed Windows 8 on it without any problems next to the already installed Windows

In this article I will tell you how to create a partition on a hard disk in windows 7. A hard disk partition is a part of a hard disk on which information can be stored. Sections can be created, ...

Understanding disks, partitions, and volumes in Windows 7

A partition is an area on a hard disk that can be formatted and assigned a letter designation. On a hard disk, a volume is a formatted primary partition or logical drive. Concepts chapter and volume is often used interchangeably.

HP and Compaq computers with Windows 7 have hard drives that are divided into at least two partitions: the main partition for Windows and for work, and the recovery partition, which is used to restore the computer to factory settings. Here is a list of some of the partitions available on your hard drive.

The main partition, commonly referred to as partition C, contains system files, program files, and some free disk space that can be used.

The second section, usually designated as D, contains information for RECOVERY of the system in case of damage to the data in section C or the impossibility of their further use.

Also, the system may have a hidden section called "SYSTEM". The SYSTEM partition is used by Windows to store protected files that are used for troubleshooting purposes and should not be modified.

The computer may also contain a section called "HP_TOOLS". This section contains HP UEFI tools that you can use to troubleshoot boot problems or check your system for hardware failures.

Attention!
When you follow the steps in this document not remove the SYSTEM, Recovery, or FACTORY_IMAGE partition and do not use it to store files. Otherwise, the troubleshooting or recovery tools may not load, even if there is a serious problem with your computer.

Adding a new drive letter in Windows 7

To create more storage space or view a different file, add a new drive letter to your computer using one of the following methods:

Installing a new drive- If you need more disk space for storing photos, videos, music or other files, please install another hard disk or connect a USB storage device. The new hard drive can be internal or external, connected to your computer using a USB cable. When you add a new storage device, Windows automatically assigns a letter to it.

Note.
To add a new internal drive, the computer must have free space to connect it. Most mid tower or larger PCs have space for an additional hard drive. Almost all Slimline and AiO laptops and computers do not have room for an additional hard drive.

Partitioning your existing drive- If you do not need additional disk space, but need a separate disk in Windows environment, create another partition on the installed hard disk. This can be useful if you want to share files on one disk, preventing access to your other files on the other disk.

This method does not add disk space, but allocates some free space on the existing hard disk to create a new partition. This space will be treated like a different drive and will have its own lettering.

Creating a new partition in Windows 7

To reclaim free space on your hard disk by creating more partitions or volumes, the hard disk must have unallocated space that is not part of an existing partition. Shrink your existing hard drive to create unallocated space, then create and format a new partition.

To open the Disk Management utility, click the Start button. ... In the Search box, enter the text Section. Then, in the list of search results, select the line Creating and formatting hard disk partitions.

Rice. : Search results for category "Section"

The Disk Management utility window opens and displays information about the storage devices installed on your computer.

To create unallocated disk space, right-click on the disk on which you want to create a partition. For most applications, choose the C: drive.

Then click Reduce Volume ...

Attention!
Not use the Recovery or FACTORY_IMAGE partition to create a new volume. Otherwise, HP Recovery Manager will not be able to restore the computer configuration if the information in the C: partition becomes corrupted.

Do not change the settings in the Reduce window. Click Reduce.

After the process of shrinking the partition is completed, the new partition will be displayed in the Disk Management utility window as Unallocated Space.

Rice. : Disk Management window with unallocated space circled in red

Right click on the new section. In the menu that appears, select New simple section ...

The New Simple Section Wizard will open. Click Next to continue.

The Specify the volume size window will appear on the screen. Enter a size for the volume or click Next to accept the default settings.

The "Assigning letter or path" window will appear on the screen. Select a letter and click Next.

Rice. : "Assigning letter or path" window
The Format Partition window will appear on the screen. To name the section, enter it in the Volume label field. Then click the Next button.

Note.
Not choose installation Quick format or Allow compression of files and folders.

The settings window will appear on the screen. Click the Finish button.

The Disk Management utility window appears with a formatting progress bar.

After the formatting process is complete, the new partition will be displayed in the Disk Management utility window.

If the AutoPlay window appears, click the X in the upper right corner to close it.

Change drive letter in Windows 7

Each drive on your computer can be assigned a letter from C to Z. The system partition is usually represented by the letter C, and the letters A and B are for floppy disks or removable media. If your computer does not have a floppy disk drive, you can assign letters A and B to volumes.

Note.
Some MS-DOS and Windows programs refer to specific drive letters. If you change the drive letter, some installed programs may not work properly. The drive letter for a system or boot drive cannot be changed. If an error appears, it means that the partition or drive you want to change the letter designation of is currently in use. Close all programs and windows using the partition or disk and try again.

Follow these steps to change the drive letter.

Removing a drive letter in Windows 7

You can clear and access storage space on your computer by removing the drive letters. The drive letter can be removed using the Disk Management utility.

Attention!

Deleting a partition in Windows 7

You can clear and access storage space on your computer by deleting partitions. A partition can be removed from the Disk Management option in the Computer Management window by selecting Delete Volume, Delete Partition, and adding unallocated space to another disk.

Attention!
Deleting a volume deletes all data written to it. Make a backup copy of the data you need.

Hello. Today I decided to write about how to create a partition on a hard disk already from under Windows 7. Simply put, how to partition a hard disk after installing Windows. First, I'll write a few words about why partitioning a hard drive and creating additional partitions at all. If, for example, you bought a new computer or laptop, then most likely it does not have an installed operating system, and if it is also DOS, then you most likely want to change it to Windows. I wrote about how to install Windows 7 in the article Installing Windows 7, you can read.

So, most likely your hard disk will not be divided into partitions, but it will either have one partition, or there will simply be an unallocated area. In principle, the hard disk can be partitioned when installing the operating system, there is a very understandable editor, but if you have not done this and installed Windows 7 in one single partition, then you can create additional partitions after installing the operating system.

You don't even need special programs for this, Windows 7 has an excellent utility called "Disk Management". I have already used it to create partitions (local disks) more than once and there were no problems. You can also take some space from an existing local disk and create another one. This will be useful if, for example, you want to install another operating system, but there is no free memory on your hard disk.

As for the question whether it is necessary to divide the hard disk into partitions at all, the answer here is unequivocal, yes. It is very inconvenient when the operating system, all your files and everything in the world are installed in one section. This will firstly slow down your system, and secondly, it will be very difficult to find something among this heap of folders. Well, in general, why do this, because partitioning a disk can be very simple. Moreover, nowadays hard drives are large.

How to create a partition on a hard drive from under Windows 7

Let's get down to the very process of creating new partitions, they are local disks on Windows 7.

Open "Start" and right click on "Computer". Then select "Manage".

A window will open in which we select on the left, wait a little while the information about the partitions on the hard disk is loaded.

We look at the structure of our hard drive. As you can see, I already have partitions created. And you will most likely have only one section and an unaligned area. In order to take memory from one partition, then right-click on a specific partition and select "Shrink volume ...", follow the instructions.

After that, you will have a memory in the "Free" statute (I have a light green color). It is from this area that we will create our sections. And one more thing, if you have compressed the system partition with Windows, then I advise you to leave at least 50 GB of memory for it, and if the network is from something, then more is possible.

So right-click on the "Free" area and select Create Simple Volume.

The Create Volumes (Local Disks) Wizard will open. In the first window, click "Next".

We indicate the size of the section we are creating. If you want to create a partition from the entire free area, then just click "Next".

In the next window, I advise you to leave the formatting of the new partition, and if you wish, you can set the volume label. this is text instead of "Local Disk". Click "Next".

We check all the information and click "Finish".

Well, that's actually all. As you can see, nothing complicated. Believe me, it is better to divide the hard disk into partitions right away than to keep all the information in one partition. By the way, you can go to "My Computer", a new section has already appeared and is ready to go.

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

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

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

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

Everything is automated in Acronis Disk Director. Run it and decide on the disk from which you will take gigabytes. Now, to create a new partition on the hard disk, 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 original volume, that is, the partition from which we subtract several gigabytes. As soon as you indicated the size of the future volume, click OK.

The floor is done. I see that I have a disk (H :) of 25 GB, and the disk (D :) has less gigabytes, but this is only the picture shows what will happen in the end. We also need to save these changes. To do this, the program has a button 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, having closed all other programs in advance.

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

Attention! In the process, you cannot restart the computer manually while the program is running.

This is how I usually create partitions on 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 space left on the disk
2. If the hard drive is very old

2. The standard way to create a new partition

And if you do not want to install separate programs, then I will now show you how a standard program in Windows can create a partition on a hard disk.

Go to Start and by right-clicking on the computer, 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 it is one, and all the sections into which it is divided are indicated in a row. In my case, these are 3 sections. You can have one.

To it is necessary to determine from which disk several gigabytes will be taken away and by clicking on it with the right mouse button select the item Compress volume.

In the window that opens, in the third field, indicate how much you reduce the disk. For example, 50,000 megabytes, this would be 50 gigabytes. Then press Compress.

This section has decreased and unallocated space appeared. Click on it and select Create simple volume.

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

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

The topic of compressing a volume or disk partition in Windows was touched upon. Here I want to show you how you can use unallocated disk space and create a new volume or partition using the Disk Management tool or using the command line.

How to create a new volume or partition using Disk Management

Open the Disk Management tool. To do this, open the Run dialog (Win + R), enter the command diskmgmt.msc and press Enter.

Right click on the unallocated space and click Create Simple Volume.

On the New Simple Volume Wizard, click Next.

Enter the amount of space you want to use for the new volume (or partition) and click Next.

In the next step, you can change the formatting options, but this is not necessary, especially if you are satisfied with the default settings. Additionally, you can change the volume label to any name you like, but it's better to use something descriptive: for example, "Movies", "Documents", "Backups" etc. Also you can enable the option to compress files and folders. When all settings are selected, click Next.

Review the selected options. If you want to change anything, click Back to return to the previous steps. If everything suits you, click "Finish".

After that, a new partition should be successfully created on your computer.

How to create a new volume or partition via the command line

Open a command prompt with administrator rights.

Enter diskpart and press Enter.

In the DISKPART line enter list disk... This command will list the drives on your PC. It will also help you determine the number of the disk with unallocated space.

Now enter the command select disk with the volume number and press Enter: for example, selectvolume 0.

Advice: you can manually specify the size of the new partition. To do this, add size = x to the create partition primary command (where x is the size of the partition in megabytes). The whole command will look like this: create partition primary size = 1000

Now that the partition has been created, enter the command list volume and press Enter. As a result, you will see a volume (in my case, volume 3) with a RAW file system. However, it would be more correct to say that this is a volume without a file system.

Next, you need to format the partition to NTFS file system. Enter the command format fs = ntfs quick(where quick Is an indication that the fast format should be used) and press Enter.

You have just successfully created and formatted the partition. The last thing to do is assign a drive letter for the new partition. This is also a fairly simple task.

Enter the command list volume, pay attention to the number of the new section and enter the command select volume, not forgetting to indicate the section number. For example, in my case, the command will look like this: select volume 3.

You now have two options to assign a drive letter: you can simply enter the command assign, but then the DiskPart tool will automatically assign one of the available letters for the new partition (this is what is shown in the screenshot below); or you can enter the command assign letter = f, where f Is the drive letter. If you choose the second option, make sure the drive letter you want to assign is not already assigned to another drive.

That's all! Everything written above works on Vista, Windows 7 and 8.x.

Have a great day!