Disk Management in Windows

1. Open Disk Management.

2. Select and hold (or right-click) the disk you want to initialize, and then select Initialize Disk. If the disk is listed as Offline, first select and hold (or right-click) the disk, and then select Online.

   Some USB disks can't be initialized. These disks are only formatted and then assigned a drive letter.

3. In the Initialize Disk dialog box, make sure the correct disk is selected, and then select OK to accept the default partition style or change it, as needed.

• Use GPT if you have a modern system with UEFI firmware and need support for large drives and more than four partitions.

• Use MBR if you are working with older hardware or operating systems that do not support UEFI.

The disk status then briefly changes to Initializing and then to the Online status. If initializing fails for some reason, see Troubleshooting disk management.

To create a partition or volume (the two terms are often used interchangeably) on a hard disk, you must be logged in as an administrator, and there must be either unallocated disk space or free space within an extended partition on the hard disk.

If there is no unallocated disk space, you can create some by shrinking an existing partition, deleting a partition, or by using a third-party partitioning program.

1. Open Disk Management.

2. Right-click an unallocated region on your hard disk, and then select New Simple Volume.

3. In the New Simple Volume Wizard, select Next.

4. Enter the size of the volume you want to create in megabytes (MB) or accept the maximum default size, and then select Next.

5. Accept the default drive letter or choose a different drive letter to identify the partition, and then select Next.

6. In the Format Partition dialog box, do one of the following:

7. • If you don't want to format the volume right now, select Do not format this volume, and then select Next.

   • To format the volume with the default settings, select Next.

8. Review your choices, and then select Finish.

1. Open Disk Management.

2. Right-click the volume that you want to format, and then select Format.

3. To format the volume with the default settings, in the Format dialog box, select OK, and then select OK again.

To extend a basic volume, see Extend a basic volume.

To shrink a basic volume, see Shrink a basic volume.

To change a drive letter, see Change a drive letter.