Windows is very good with hard drive file systems. Even though you might think you’re stuck in the same partitions and format your hard disk, Windows will allow you to change things up to your preference. It’s not too complicated either. Here’s how to format and partition an external hard drive on Windows.
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quick answer
To format an external hard drive on Windows, find it in Windows Explorer, right-click it, and click appearance, and follow the steps. To partition an external hard drive on Windows, open File Disk Management Tool, right-click on the external partition and click Reduce the size of. Follow the steps to shrink it as much as you want the new partition to be, then right-click Unallocated spaces and click Simple new sizeand follow the steps.
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How to format an external hard drive on Windows
Formatting an external hard drive on Windows is very simple. Connect the external drive to your computer and open Windows Explorer. click this computer From the left navigation pane to show all available drives. Right-click the external drive, and click appearance.
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The formatting tool will appear. Click the dropdown menu below file system, and click the preferred option between NTFS and exFAT. Rename the drive under volume label, if you want to. If you want to format the drive more comprehensively, uncheck Quick Format can. click beginning.
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click yes When the warning pops up.
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Windows will format your external drive, and give you a confirmation dialog when the format is complete.
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How to partition an external hard drive on Windows
To partition an external drive on Windows, you will need to use a disk management tool. Search for Disk Management in Windows search. Click on the top search result named Create and format hard disk partitions.
Find the external drive listed in the network view in the lower half. To create a new partition, you will need unallocated space. You’ll see this under a blackhead in Disk Management. If you don’t already have unallocated space, and you want to partition your external drive, right-click the partition on your external drive in Network view, and then click Reduce the size of…
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The Shrink Size dialog box will appear. in the box next to Enter the amount of space to be reduced in megabytestype the amount of space you want for the new partition(s).
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The default number here will be the maximum available, but we recommend leaving some breathing room for the current section. Once you have entered the shape, tap shrink.
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It will take a few seconds, and the drive will now display the unallocated space with a black head. Right-click on it, and click Simple new size.
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The New Simple Volume Wizard will pop up. click next one.
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in the box next to Simple volume size in megabytes, the default number will be the maximum available space. You can reduce it by typing a lower number in the box if you want another partition, or leave it as is if you only want to create one partition, and then click next one.
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You can set a different character on this screen using the dropdown menu, or just stick to the default character and click next one.
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On the next screen, you can choose the file system and partition name. Configure it according to your needs, and click next one.
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Take a final look, and click ending to create the new partition.
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It will take a few seconds, but the partition will appear in the network view of the external disk in Disk Manager.
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If you want to create another partition, you can repeat the process to create a new volume with the allocated space you left before, or repeat the entire process by shrinking existing partitions.
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questions and answers
There are no downsides to partitioning an external hard drive. It depends on what kind of usage you want from your external hard drive. It’s a good idea to split it up if you want to use the hard drive for two different purposes and don’t want to mix up your files.
It is not a necessary thing. It just depends on your use and whether the use guarantees partitions for different purposes.
Yes, Windows Disk Management allows you to do this. You will need available unallocated space if you want to expand a partition, and if you are shrinking a partition, it will leave you with unallocated space that you can use to expand other partitions.
