How To Partition a Hard Drive in Windows XP

Sometimes you may want to divide a single hard disk into multiple drives, often called partitions or volumes. You may want multiple partitions to ensure the integrity of certain types of data, to install different operating systems on a single computer, or to limit the amount of space certain information can occupy, like music or video. The process for partitioning a hard disk is not necessarily complicated, although it risks the loss of all data currently residing on that disk. For this reason, it is imperative that you back up everything you want to keep.

Method 1 of 2: Create a Partition in Windows XP, Vista and 7

1. Open "Disk Management." To do this, press the "Windows" and "R" buttons on your keyboard at the same time. Type "diskmgmt.msc" into the dialog box that appears and press "Return."

2. Decide which disk you want to partition.

• Right click on the desired disk, and select "Shrink Volume" from the context menu.

• Right click on the "Unallocated Space," and select "New Simple Volume" from the context menu.

3. Answer the questions posed by the Wizard when it appears.

• Enter the desired size of the new partition in megabytes. The size of the new drive can't exceed the amount of unallocated space.

• Decide what letter you want to represent this new volume.

• Click "Next" in the "Format Partition" box to format the partition right away.

• Click "Finish."

Method 2 of 2: Create a Partition in OS X

1. Open the "Disk Utility." This can be found in the "Utilities" folder within the "Applications" folder.

2. Select the disk you want to partition from the menu on the left.

3. Select the "Partition" in the right side of the window.

• If your computer only has 1 disk drive you probably don't want to partition this drive because all of the data, including the operating system, will be lost.

4. Click the "+" and "-" buttons below the "Volume Scheme" to determine the number of partitions.

• You can adjust the size of the partitions by moving the separator bars in the "Volume Scheme" window.

Name the new partitions by selecting each from the "Volume Scheme" and entering the name under the "Volume Information" heading.



5. Click "Apply."