How to Create a Partition
Creating a partition is extremely easy in Vista and a smart thing to do to safeguard your precious documents or files of any kind. Your computer simply views the partition as another hard drive. If your operating system ever needs to be re-installed due to a virus infection or is corrupted in any way and refuses to boot up, you can re-install your operating system without worrying about losing your treasured pictures or documents.
the operating system installs by default into "C:" drive. If your new partition is in "D:" drive or any other drive, your files remain safe and will not be overwritten by the new installation.
Before creating a partition, be sure to defragment your hard drive, to ensure that your files are not corrupted. Be sure to backup your documents and any files or folders you wish to safeguard on a blank cd or DVD disc.
- Click "Start"
- Type "Computer Management" in the "Start Search" box.
- Click on Computer Management" (toward the top)
- Click on "Storage"
- Click on "Disk Management"
- Right-click on the hard drive you want to partition
- Click "Shrink Volume"
- You will see a dialogue box showing the total size of your existing space and how much is available to shrink
- In the option "Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB:" type the number of megabytes you want the new partition or space to be.
- Click "Shrink"
- You'll then see your new free space. You MUST take the next steps to make the space usable.
- Right-click on the space and click "New Simple Volume"
- Click "Next"
- You will see a dialogue box that gives you the option to format the partition. You must format in order to use this partition. Click "Next".
- Click on "Finish" in the next dialogue box, and your new partition will be ready for you to use just like another hard drive.
