- #How to partition an external hard drive windows 10 how to#
- #How to partition an external hard drive windows 10 mac os x#
Right-click it and select New Simple Volume. Find the newly unallocated space that just popped up in Disk Management.(This will vary according to your flash drive size.) Enter an amount of space that you'd like to use for new partitions and click Shrink. Look at the amount of space available to partition.Right-click the USB drive in Disk Management and choose Shrink Volume.Formatting the drive will delete its contents. Determine which file system format (such as FAT32 or NTFS) the USB drive currently uses, and format it to the correct file format for your needs.Look at the sizes and volume letters of listed disks to find your USB drive.Right-click the Start button and choose the Disk Management utility from the menu.Connect the USB flash drive to your PC.If that's what you want to do, use the process in our guide to resetting a USB drive. These instructions assume that you want to change the existing partitions on your USB drive, rather than deleting them and starting over with a blank partition.
It's possible to delete some or all of the files on your USB drive during partitioning, so it's important to have a backup for anything you might delete. Always back up the USB drive's entire contents first.
#How to partition an external hard drive windows 10 mac os x#
We'll give you instructions for both Windows 10 and Mac OS X below. Partitioning a USB drive works slightly differently depending on what kind of host computer you use to create the partition. In the next sections, we'll show you how!
#How to partition an external hard drive windows 10 how to#
Up ahead, we'll show you how to partition a USB drive on both PC and Mac, and we'll talk about a few things you should know before you get started. Sometimes, when you're organizing or reformatting your digital storage, it might be necessary to reset or change the partitions on a USB drive. Almost everyone uses partitioned drives every day, and most of us don't think twice about it! These digital divisions separate hard drives into separate logical volumes, and they're an important part of the basic structure of how hard drives store information. Partitions are an essential part of any kind of digital hard drive storage.