Standard program for working with disks. Programs for working with hard disk partitions. Disk Management in GParted

Hard partitioning is the process of dividing one disk into several logical disks. In this post we will analyze popular breakdown programs.

Operating system Windows 7 is equipped with a built-in utility for partitioning disks. To run it, follow the path: Start - Control Panel - - Administrative Tools - Computer Management. - Disk Management.

By running the Disk Management utility, you will have access to all the necessary functions. For already existing disks, you can perform: delete, format, change letters, compress and delete the disk. If a new tin can is connected to the PC without partitioning, you can perform the partitioning of the disk.

If the capabilities of the built-in utility for partitioning the disk are not enough for you, you can use third-party programs.

Free programs for disk partitioning

There are not so many quality free programs for partitioning a disk. One of these programs is Wondershare Disk Manager Free. This program makes it possible to create, delete, format and convert partitions. The program has a very simple and intuitive interface. In view of this, even the absence of the Russian language will not complicate the process of working with the program, even for not too experienced users. To install this program, you will have to go through a free and extremely simple registration on the manufacturer's website.

Wondershare Disk Manager Free Download

Paid disk partitioning software

One of the most popular and well-known programs of this kind is Partition Magic from Symantec. This program can work from a boot disk, which greatly simplifies the breakdown of the hard before installing the operating system. Partition program Magic supports file nTFS systems and FAT. In addition to basic operations such as creating and formatting, Partition Magic gives you the ability to convert file systems, resize partitions, merge partitions.

Paragon Partition Manager is a powerful hard partitioning program, reserve copy, defragmentation and operating systems management. Unlike the previous program, Paragon Partition Manager has a wider set of features and functions. So, this program one of the few that allows you to work with disks for virtual machines (MS Virtual PC, VMware Workstation, VMware Fusion and Sun VirtualBox).

Acronis Disk Director is another advanced hard partitioning and disk management software. Acronis Disk Director consists of three parts: a disk management module, an Acronis Recovery Expert module for recovering lost data, and an Acronis OS Selector module for managing multiple operating systems. Acronis Disk Director is equipped with all the necessary functions for disk management, while the program supports all modern file operating systems.

While working with personal computer it may be necessary to change, add or remove partitions of the hard disk. If during the initial windows installation 7, the creation of sections is interactive and intuitive, then making changes to the created sections requires a certain skill. Due to the lack of any experience in these matters, the user may incorrectly perform the necessary actions, which will subsequently lead to a complete loss of data or even to the failure of the hard disk. To facilitate the process of creating and modifying disk partitions, the Disk Management utility will help.

Disk Management utility and its functions

The Disk Management utility is a tool for performing various operations with hard disks and their partitions.

With its help you can:

• create, delete, merge volumes on the disk;
• shrink volumes;
• format volumes;
• assign letters to volumes;
• add volumes without rebooting;
• manage local and remote disks online.

Opening Disk Management

There are several ways to launch the program.

Through the start menu

1. Click on the "Start" menu and click right click mouse on "Computer". We choose "Management".

   Right-click on "Computer" and select "Management"

2. In the "Computer Management" window that opens, click on "Disk Management".

   Selecting "Disk Management"

3. The Disk Management window opens.

   Disk Management Utility Window

Through the command line

Through the "Control Panel"

1. Click on the "Start" menu, select "Control Panel".

   Click "Control Panel"

2. In the search box, enter "administration" and click on the "Administration" section that appears.

   Click on the "Administration" section

3. In the list, select "Computer Management".

   Choose "Computer Management"

4. In the "Computer Management" window that opens, click on "Disk Management".

   Click on "Disk Management"

Why "Disk Management" won't open

There are situations when the Disk Management console does not open, or it opens, but the console window is blank, and the warning "Failed to connect to the Logical Disk Manager service" appears.

There are various reasons for this problem. To eliminate their impact on the disk management process, you must do the following:

1. Conduct antivirus scan. Running antivirus software it is recommended to do it from an optical disc or from a protected flash drive. After checking, open "Quarantine" of the antivirus. If the dmdskmgr.dll library is in the Quarantine, then return it to its place.
2. Run the command Rundll32 setupapi, InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132% windir% \\ inf \\ dmreg.inf through the Start menu and the Run window.
3. Go to "Control Panel" - "Administrative Tools" - "Services" and make sure that "Logical Disk Manager" and "Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service" are running. If they are stopped, then enable them.
4. Enter the Basic Input / Output System (BIOS) menu. To do this, while turning on the computer, press Del, F2 or Esc (the choice of key depends on the manufacturer of the computer). If in launch pad there is no information about the connected HDD, then check the connecting cables at the points of connection to the drive.

How to create a logical drive

The very first hard drives, first created by IBM in 1973, contained 30 cylinders, each of which was divided into 30 tracks. By analogy with automatic rifles using the .30–30 Winchester cartridge, such discs were called "Winchesters". Over time, in colloquial speech, the word "Winchester" was transformed into "screw".

Most "hard drives" are sold already prepared for Windows installation, ie, the main partition has already been created on them. The rest of the operations are carried out during the installation of the system. Installation is carried out from a bootable optical disc or USB device. At one of the installation stages, a window will appear prompting you to select a space for installing the system.

If the "hard drive" before going on sale was not prepared for immediate installation of the system, then the user will have to do all the operations. This will require a bootable optical disc or USB stick.

Before installation, we configure the BIOS (basic input-output system) to boot from a DVD or USB drive:

When forming a partition on the "hard drive", all free space is used, and additional partitions are created after installing Windows 7.

If possible, it is better to use booting Windows PE in which the acronis software Disk Director or Partition Magic. These utilities are designed to manage hard drive partitions.

Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) is used to prepare a computer for installing Windows. It is built into other system installation and recovery tools and is not intended to be used as a primary operating system.

If you don't have a bootable disk such as Windows PE, you can:

The created logical drives must be formatted using the format.com utility. Now you can proceed to install Windows 7.

Management of logical drives "hard drive"

You can manage hard drive partitions through the context menu of each of them. They present a set of commands required to operate.

Compressing a section

The command to compress the logical disk is specified in context menu.

Creating a section

The new partition is created in a free area of \u200b\u200bthe hard drive, which does not yet belong to the formatted volume. At the bottom of the Disk Management console, this space is highlighted in bright green, and in the legend line is indicated as “Free”.

1. When the partition has been compressed, right-click on the unallocated space and select Create Simple Volume from the context menu.

   Right-click on the unallocated space and select "Create Simple Volume" in the context menu

2. The "Simple Volume Wizard" will start.

   After starting the "Simple Volume Wizard", click "Next"

3. We indicate the size of the new volume.

   Specify the size of the new volume

4. We assign a letter (letter) to the disk.

   Assigning a drive letter (letter)

5. Determine the file system, cluster size and volume label.
6. We are formatting the section.

   Formatting the section

7. In the last window, click on the "Finish" button and create a new logical disk.

   Click on the "Finish" button

After reformatting, the volume is ready for use.

Changing the letter of a section

Merging sections

When it becomes necessary to reduce the number of logical drives, the two are merged into one common logical drive. Before merging, the necessary information from the removed logical disk is copied to another disk or to removable media.

To combine one drive with another:

1. Select the volume you want to attach and call the context menu. Click on "Delete volume".

   Select the volume, call the context menu and click on "Delete volume"

2. A message will appear in the opened window that all data on the volume will be deleted. Confirm deletion.

   We confirm deletion

3. In place of the deleted volume, a partition with the "Free" status will appear. Select it and select "Delete section" in the context menu.
4. To attach an empty volume to the desired logical disk, right-click on the section to which it will be attached empty section, and in the context menu select "Expand volume".

   Mark the empty volume and attach to the main volume

After merging is complete, restart Windows 7 to avoid errors and loss of information.

Video: Disk Management in Windows 7

Disk management software

To manage drives other than standard utility "Disk Management", there are several programs. They are widely used due to their clear and user-friendly interface. These programs include:

• Acronis Disk Director is a program that provides management logical drives and is responsible for the maintenance of "hard drives";

  Provides management of logical drives and is responsible for maintaining "hard drives"

• Partition Magic is a program with fewer features compared to Acronis Disk Director. This utility is outdated and not supported by most manufacturers, but is included in the package software on old boot disks;

  This utility is outdated and not supported by most manufacturers, but is included with the software on older boot disks

• AOMEI Partition Assistant - a lesser known program for working with partitions "hard drive". One of the advantages of this program is the ability to convert the MBR format to GPT format without losing information. This feature can come in handy when moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8, and is required for users working with these systems.

  One of the advantages of this program is the ability to convert the MBR to GPT format without losing information.

In addition to these utilities, on the Internet you can find other developments designed to work with hard disk partitions.

Despite all the variety of utilities for working with hard drives, it is better to opt for one, study it and use it in your work, since improper use of programs can lead to the deletion of important data accumulated over many years of work. Recovering lost information will take a lot of time and effort, but it may not lead to the desired result.

Date: 17:44 12.08.2019

Linux:

Of course - this is Gparted, a program available in most Linux distributions, it also has a BootCD or.

Popular linux distributions - Ubuntu (all variations), Debian, AltLinux, Slax, Slitaz can be installed via the application manager or by the command apt install gparted

Windows:

Effective program for changing partitions hard disk, works from under the Windows shell, the size of the distribution is from 44 megabytes. I often use it when you need to quickly repartition file system on clients' computers remotely - I drop the distro and change the partitions. The program has not failed so far, but it has one drawback - there is no Russian language. English and Japanese only.

The latest version tries to install Yandex items. You can safely refuse them

Unfortunately, the project is closed, but the program remains. It's really free, although it asks for registration. The archive contains my activation data (I received it absolutely free of charge, apparently there was just a collection for statistics). The program is slightly simpler in functionality than the previous one, which is good, since the size of the distribution kit is only 6 megabytes. Unfortunately, there are no programs without errors, and this one is no exception - unfortunately, it can work correctly only with those partitions that are not used - for example, drive D: if nothing is started or opened from it. There have been times when I managed to change the C: drive, but recently I have had no luck in this. The program, of course, carefully offers to reboot to apply the changes to the host disk, but as a result nothing changes \u003d (therefore, when I really need to change the size of the main disk, I use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free.

The program is also devoid of the Russian language, does not have a BootCD, the weight of the distribution kit is only 12 megabytes. Here, just for the sake of variety, I haven't tried it in battle.

Finally we reached the Russian and even free software! It even lets you make a bootable disc! The distribution kit weighs only 9 mb.

This article explains how to create, modify or delete hard disk partitions windows tools 7.
To work with hard disk partitions in Windows 7 there is a tool called "Disk Management": Control Panel → System and Security → Administrative Tools → Computer Management → Disk Management OR “Start” → enter in the search bar: diskmgmt.msc and press Enter.

1. Creating a section
Right-click on a free, not occupied by other partitions, place of the required hard disk → Create simple volume... The "Simple Volume Wizard" window will open, click the "Next" button. Then specify the size of the partition to be created, assign a drive letter, select the required file system and formatting options, make sure again that you did everything correctly and click "Finish"
2. Compressing a section
Shrink volume... A window will appear asking for a space for compression, we are waiting until the end of the poll. Then, in the window that appears in the line "size of compressible space", specify the amount of free space and click "Compress"
3. Section extension
Right click on the desired section → Expand volume... The "Volume Expansion Wizard" window will appear, click the "Next" button. Then select the desired free area in the list, click "Add", then specify the size of the allocated section free space, click "Next", check the information and click "Finish"
4. Deleting a section
Right click on the desired section → Delete volume... Before proceeding, copy all required files and folders on another drive, tk. after deleting a volume, all data on it will be lost.
5. Change drive letter
Right click on the desired section → Change drive letter or drive path… Click the Change button, select the required drive letter and click OK. Next, we will take a closer look at ways to expand disks and not harm the information we store.

In order to share hDD on the sections, you need to go to the "Start" menu → right-click on "Computer" and click on "Manage".

In the window that appears, go to the "Disk Management" section.

Select the hard drive and the partition that you want to partition and right-click on it.

In the drop-down menu, select "Shrink Volume" and then select the size to which you want to shrink the existing partition. The space freed up after compression will be the new hard disk partition.

To create a new partition, you need to right-click on the vacated space and select "create volume". Then specify the size of the new partition and wait for the operation to complete. Sooner or later, any computer user is faced with such a problem as a lack of free space on the system partition of the hard drive. This is where the question arises: How do I expand the C drive?

First we need to go to the "Computer Management" tab (see above).
When this tab opens, you will see in the window all the media that are currently connected to the computer. Each hard disk can be split into several logical ones. The very first will be "Disc 0". The system-reserved space and logical partitions (C, D, E, F, etc.) will be displayed on the right. If you have only one C drive and it is full, you can try "Shrink Volume" (see above). If you have several logical partitions, then move on.

Disc division principle.

The principle of action is as follows: we must expand the C drive at the expense of an adjacent logical partition. This could be drive D, E, and so on. In the same way, you can increase not only the C section, but others as well, if you have such a need. So, we delete the adjacent disk, for example, D. Click on it with the right mouse button and select the "Delete volume" option. Click OK. Immediately after that, this volume should be displayed in black. It should display "Volume not allocated". Now you can add the space we need to the C drive. To do this, right-click on the C partition and select "Expand Volume". Click "Next" and select the size you want to add.
You can use the maximum size, as suggested by default, or choose at your discretion. Click "Next" and then "Finish". If no additional windows pop up, then the operation was successful. You learned how to expand your C drive using Windows 7. The main thing to remember is that system partition can be increased only if there is free space to the right of it. Otherwise, nothing will work.

Possible difficulties.

What other difficulties can there be? Let's say we have five volumes. We want to configure them in such a way that we add part of the space to drive C, and another to drive D. When you delete one of the partitions, the "Delete volume" function may not be active, and the "Expand volume" function is not available on volume C.
The thing is that the section style can be used MBR *... This is an outdated style. In this case, two adjacent volumes can be linked with a green border. This means that more than four volumes cannot be created with the MBR partition style.

Windows 8 provides the same tools for increasing space. Therefore, this method is also applicable on this operating system.

Partitioning the hard drive in the operating room windows system 7 is a very simple thing. You can see for yourself if you break down and create a new section according to the described algorithm.

* MBR (Master Boot Record) main boot record in a PC, a table in the first sector of the boot disk that stores data about the physical and logical organization of the disk. If this entry is corrupted, it becomes impossible to boot the OS.

That's all. Thanks for reading the article. I hope you found it useful.

After purchasing a computer or installing a new hard drive, as a rule, you will have only 1 partition on it. Let's talk about this today: how to divide a hard drive into 2 or more partitions. This example will be provided on windows 7 OS through the operating system without installing additional software.

How many partitions should there be:

For correct windows work 7, 1 partition "drive C" is enough. The system is installed on it and nothing else is needed for it. it has all the necessary folders. But, in terms of convenience and own safety, at least 2 partitions are recommended, these are drive "C" and drive "D". Why 2? It's that simple! It is advisable to leave the C drive only for windows and programs, and use the D drive for games, music, movies, photos, etc. Thus, in the event of a failure and reinstall windows all important information will not suffer.

How to split C drive into multiple drives

In order to partition the disk into partitions, open: Start menu, control panel. Next, we have to work with the System and Security tab.

That's it, we have come to the right place and there should be such a window in front of you:

To see which partitions are already installed, open "Disk Management". operating system is usually located on drive "C", so you need to be careful when working with it.

To partition drive "C" into partitions, right-click on it and select "Shrink Volume".

In the new window that opens, enter the desired size for the new partition:

Now click "create". In the window that opens, enter how much you want.

In a new window, on an unallocated area, right-click and select “create simple volume” as below:

Done. You can get to work, but it is advisable to restart your computer.

Program for partitioning HDD into partitions

Personally, I prefer to do without third-party programsif it is possible to get by through windows that's what I do. I already wrote above how to partition an HDD without a program, now let's look at alternative way using third-party software.

For example, I took the simplest, free and very convenient program "Disk manager free"

Uploaded it to Yandex disk, you can download for free - https://yadi.sk/d/c0A22sBs3ReiFh

Installation and use is as easy as a door. To partition the disk, you need to do everything the same as in the example above without programs. As you can see, there is no sense from it, in my opinion, and it is better to do everything as in the example above, without downloading anything.