For any disk partition management task on Windows systems it is not necessary to use external programs, often difficult to understand or which are unclear in many of the steps to be performed. On Windows 10 we have an internal utility called Disk Management quite simple to use and should provide all the options for most of the work with hard disks and SSDs (partitions, partition deletion, file system conversions). In this guide we will show you how to best use Disk Management in Windows to create partitions, resize volumes, format disks. Before trying other programs, we always recommend starting with this tool: being well integrated with the system, it will provide you with a much higher level of security in moving data than any other free program to manage disks.
How to use Disk Management in Windows
In the following chapters we will show you all the main operations that we can perform on a disk or on an SSD with the tool integrated in Windows. We advise you to always act on new internal or external disks (not yet formatted) connected to a PC with Windows 10 already installed and we avoid touching the partitions where Windows or its boot files are present .Create a new partition
Creating partitions with the integrated tool, especially if we have an empty USB external disk to fill or a new internal disk to configure, is very simple: we connect the disk to our computer, we start Windows, we right click on the Start menu at the bottom left, press on Disk Management, identify at the bottom the disk on which to create the new partition, press the right mouse button on an empty point (identified as Unallocated ) and select New simple volume .
In the presentation window we click on Next, we choose the size that the partition must have (based on the available or remaining space), we press again on Next, we immediately assign a drive letter to be able to immediately view the partition in Windows resources and press again on Next to open the most important window.
Make sure to put a check mark on Format this volume with the following settings, then choose NTFS as the file system, Default as the size of the allocation unit, choose a name as you like to give to the new partition, tick the item Perform quick format then press on Next and Finish to confirm the operation.
Delete unused partitions
To delete a partition among those present on a disk, open the Disk Management tool, press the right button on the partition to be deleted and then use the Delete volume item.
A confirmation window will appear before performing the actual cancellation. For security reasons, Windows does not allow you to wipe Windows system and boot partitions, thus preventing unwary users from "wiping Windows".
Resize a partition
If we want to resize a partition already present on a disk (so as to have new space for another volume) we right click on the Start menu at the bottom left, open the Disk Management tool, press the right button on the partition to be resized and select the voice Reduce volume .
The system will perform a calculation of the space that can be reduced, based on the data and files already present in the same partition (we advise you to act on fairly empty partitions, so as to perform more efficient resizing). Immediately after the check we will be shown a window with the maximum size that we can reduce without touching the fixed files.
We make the choice in the field Specify the amount of space to reduce in MB, then press the Reduce button at the bottom to make the changes. The new space created by the reduction will be created as Unallocated, then available to host a new partition.
To reintegrate the previously reduced space, delete the created partition, press the right button on the partition to be extended, then use the Extend volume item.
Format partition
The last operation we will show you concerns the formatting of a partition in another file system, useful when we have to increase the maximum size of the files kept (which with FAT32 is limited to 4GB) or if we have to prepare a partition to host large files. We open our faithful Disk Management tool by selecting it from the menu available with the right button on the Start menu, we always press the right button on the partition to be converted and use the Format item.
A window will open where you can choose the format to use: to host files of any size, we recommend choosing NTFS or exFAT as the file system. Now all we have to do is put the check mark on Execute Quick Format and confirm on Finish .
As seen previously, this operation is blocked for system partitions, to avoid combining trouble with the fundamental partitions of Windows.
Conclusions
As we have found, using Disk Management on Windows 10 is really very simple, to the point that even a novice user with the formatting of a hard disk will find everything needed to use the new disk right away, avoiding to combine messes.Still on the same topic we can read our guide on how to Initialize and format new or unrecognized disk (Windows) .
If instead we want to create a dual boot between two different systems (Windows or Windows + Linux), we invite you to read our guide on how to install Windows 7 in dual boot on Windows 10 PC .
We want to use a third party program to manage partitions "> Programs to create disk partitions (for dual boot or security).
