How to Create a Partition in Windows 8

This walkthrough will take you each step of the way through creating a new partition in Windows 8.

Rather than list all of the reasons you may want to create a partition in Windows 8 (if you’re here, you have your own reason) – let’s jump right into it –

  1. Hold down the Windows Key + the r key to bring up the Run dialogue box. Enter the phrase diskmgmt.msc and click the OK button.

  2. The Disk Management utility will launch. The screenshot below illustrates what it looks like, although it’s highly unlikely it will be identical to yours (unless you have the exact same Toshiba laptop as I do).

  3. click to enlarge

  4. Right-click on the C: drive entry, and select Shrink Volume… from the menu.
  5. A Querying Shrink Space window may flash by quickly or appear for a minute or two.
  6. Now you’ll need to decide how large you want your new partition to be. To make a 1GB (gigabyte) partition, enter 1024 in the Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB: – as 1024MB = 1GB. If you want to make a 20GB partition, you would enter 20 x 1024 = 20480.

    Click the Shrink button.

  7. Back at the Disk Management window you’ll see a new entry, the same size as you specified in the previous step.

  8. click to enlarge

  9. Right-click on the new entry (will be titled Unallocated) and select New Simple Volume…
  10. Click Next on the first of the New Simple Volume Wizard
  11. Click Next (without making any changes) again.
  12. Here’s where you’ll need to make a decision on what to do based on why you’re creating a new partition. If you’re creating a new partition to use as a backup or different drive, select Assign the following drive letter: and select a letter you want to be associated with your new partition. If you’re creating a partition so you can install a new operating system*, select Do not assign a drive letter or drive path. For the sake of this tutorial, we’re going to assume you want to create a new drive and assign a drive letter to it. Click Next.
  13. Select NTFS from the Format this volume with the following settings: entry. Give the drive a ‘name’ by entering whatever you want to call it in the Volume label: field. Click Next when you’re done.
  14. Click Finish.
  15. Back in the Disk Management utility, you’ll see the new partition all finished and ready to use. You can exit the Disk Management utility now.

  16. click to enlarge

  17. If you created a new partition to use as a new ‘drive’ – it will be displayed in Windows Explorer etc.
  18. That’s it – you’re done.
  19. * = it doesn’t really matter what you select here. If you want to install a new Operating System it doesn’t matter if you create a new drive with a new drive letter and/or format it with a certain file system. When you install the new OS you’ll just overwrite settings when needed.

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