How to Change a NTFS Partition

When you connect a hard drive with one or more NTFS partitions on it to your computer, the Windows operating system will automatically assign each one a drive letter. Drive letters are used to label NTFS partitions and keep your data organized. You can use the Computer Management tool to change drive letters for your NTFS partitions. If you want to change the size of an NTFS partition, you will need to use the "diskpart" command-line utility that comes withe the Windows.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• PC running WIndows XP or later

Changing Partition Letter

1. Open the Start menu and click on the "Control Panel" icon.

2. Open the "Administrative Tools" folder and double-click on the "Computer Management" icon.

3. Go to the "Disk Management" tool on the left side of the window.

4. Right-click on the name of the NTFS partition that you want to change, and then choose the "Change Drive Letter and Paths" option.

5. Click on the "Change" button.

6. Select the new drive letter that you want to use for the selected NTFS partition, click "OK" and then confirm your decision to change the drive.

Changing Partition Size

7. Open the Start menu, click on the "Run" icon and type "cmd" into the text field. Hit "Enter" to launch the command prompt.

8. Type "diskpart" into the command prompt and hit "Enter." This will run the disk partitioning tool.

9. Type "select disk 0" to choose your primary hard drive. If you have multiple hard drives connected to your computer, you can replace "0" with a higher number. Hit "Enter" to connect to the selected partition.

10. Type "extend" followed by the size that you want to change the partition to in megabytes and hit "Enter." For example, if you wanted to change the partition to 20 megabytes, you would type "extend 20000" and then hit "Enter." The utility program will now change the size of the selected partition.

References

• Change Drive Letters in Windows
• About Diskpart