How to Partition a Hard Drive with Windows XP

Partitioning a hard drive is a fairly simple operation with the utility tool already installed on Windows XP. However, if you have difficulty finding the desktop on your computer, you’ll want to leave this job to someone with a little more experience.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• 1) an empty hard drive
• 2) some computer savvy
• 3) the ability to follow instructions

1. Go to your Control Panel and click on Administrative Tools
2. From there, go to Computer Management
3. Click on Storage, then Disk Management (local)
4. Now that Disk Management is open you will see a list of all the volumes, or hard drives that are attached to your computer. For ease of explanation, I will assume that we are partitioning an empty external hard drive. (I also strongly recommend partitioning only empty drives because you run the risk of splitting your data between partitions otherwise and that’s not a good thing.)
5. From the list of volumes, click on the empty hard drive that you wish to partition. Below the list of volumes, your selected disk will be highlighted.
6. Right click on the unallocated space of the drive. Select Make New Partition. If you do not see Make New Partition then select: Delete Partition. (If you’re wondering why there is a partition on your new drive it is because the manufacturer has made small partition on the drive already to store important system or drive information. The larger portion that is empty sometimes is partitioned in the process.)
7. Now the Partition Wizard will be open and follow the directions to name your volumes, and allocate the space on the drive anyway you want.
8. My PC drive is partitioned in two large halves. I keep all my programs on the system half, and all my digital files (of which there are many on the other half.)
   
   On my external hard drive, which is partitioned into three segments, is where I keep my backups and information that would be save me from tragedy should my hard drive crash and burn.

Tips & Warnings

• The benefits of partitioning your hard drive(s) are:
• Organization of your data,
• Enhancement of your computer's performance
• Securing sensitive information
• NOTE: You must have an Administrator type user account to perform this function.
• It's not recommended to partition a drive that already has files on it unless you're very computer savvy, in which case you wouldn't be reading this How To.