Article by George Norman

On 31 Aug 2009

Partitioning a HDD means that you take one large physical hard drive and break it up into several smaller logical hard drives – for example you take a 1TB HDD and set up one 50GB partition for the Windows operating system, and a secondary 950GB partition where you can store all your other data. You can of course set up as many partitions as you want, it is all up to you and how you think you can make the most of your HDD.

Typically you will want to have at least two partitions: on one you will want to store the Windows operating system, on the other you will want to store all your other data. If anything goes wrong, you can easily format the Windows-dedicated partition and perform a fresh OS installation. All the data stored on your secondary partition will not be kept intact.


You can partition your hard disk when you install the Windows operating system. In the case of Windows XP, the whole process goes something like this:

Step 1. Get your Windows XP installation disk, insert it in your CD or DVD-ROM.

Step 2. Reboot your computer with the disk in the CD or DVD-ROM drive.

Step 3. Press any key when presented with the message to press any key to boot from CD.

Step 4. Press Enter or F8 to access the Windows XP installation.

Step 5. You are presented with all the existing partitions as well as all the non-partitioned space. Existing partitions can be deleted by pressing D; confirm your action by pressing L. Non-partitioned space must be partitioned; press C to create a new partition.

Step 6. The disk will be formatted and the Windows XP installation process will continue.

If you want to partition an external/secondary hard drive, you can perform this task directly from the Windows interface. Just follow these simple steps:

Step 1. Start -> Control Panel

Step 2. In Classic Control Panel Mode -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management.
In Category View Mode -> Performance and Maintenance -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management.

Step 3. Under the Storage category -> click Disk Management.

Step 4. Right click the non-partitioned space -> select New Partition -> let the Wizard guide you from here. It’s a matter of reading the info presented to you, selecting the appropriate action and clicking Next.

Step 5. When you are done press Finish. The non-partitioned space will be partitioned and formatted.

You can also partition a hard disk from the command line if you follow these simple steps:

Step 1. Boot up the computer in Command Prompt Mode -> type fdisk

Step 2. You should now see the partition window. In this window you are presented with several options. Select the one that suits your needs.

Step 3. Assign the disk space for the partition you want to set up. Assign it a name as well. After you press Enter you will be presented with the partition menu.

Step 4. When you are done press Esc to exit the partition command. Format the newly created partition and you’re done.

Tips and warnings
Make sure that the Windows-dedicated partition is large enough for the operating system and all the additional software programs you will install over time.
You can use 3rd party software applications to partition hard disks after you installed the Windows operating system. Partition Magic for example will do just fine.
Backup any important data before you partition a hard drive.



Tags: Microsoft, Windows, Partition, HDD

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