Free to Convert Primary Partition to Logical Partition

Would you like to convert a primary partition to logical partition on your computer?

Reasons:

In MBR disk, a hard disk can only contain 4 primary partitions at most or 3 primary partitions plus 1 extended partition. You may want to convert a primary partition to logical partition if you want to create fifth partition on the same hard disk when there are 4 primary partitions on it.

Free Methods to Convert Primary Partition to Logical Partition

Generally speaking, you are able to convert a primary partition to logical partition on Windows computer with following methods:

Method1: Convert primary partition to logical partition using Disk Management

Method2: Change primary partition to logical drive with free software

No matter which method you use, you should pay following points:

1. It is not available to convert a system partition to logical partition. Your compute will become unbootable after converting a system partition to logical partition.

2. You need to backup data if you use Disk Management to convert a primary partition to logical partition.

Free Convert Primary Partition to Logical Drive with Disk Management

Disk Management utility on every version of Windows operating system is able to convert a primary partition to logical drive, but it would erase all data on the converted partition. Therefore, you need to backup all data to another media or drive before converting a primary partition to logical drive. Then, you can follow the guide below after backing up data:

Step1. Open Disk Management on Windows computer.

Step2. Right click the primary partition and select Delete Volume to delete the selected partition.

delete volume

Step3. The deleted primary partition will show as unallocated space. Now, you can right click the unallocated space and click New Simple Volume option.

new simple volume

Step4. Select Logical Drive and then follow the wizard to format the partition to change it to logical partition.

new logical drive

Diskpart to Convert Primary Partition to Logical in CMD

Another way to convert primary partition to logical drive is to run Diskpart.

Step1. Open Command Line on your computer and enter diskpart and pres Enter button

diskpart

Step2. Type list disk > select disk number (e.g. select disk 0)

Step3. Type create partition extended > create partition logical

Tip: Diskpart cannot convert primary partition to logical on Windows computers.

Free to Change Primary Partition to Logical with Free Software

Sometimes, when you run Disk Management to delete a primary partition and create a new logical drive, you may find that it is not able to accomplish the task because the Logical drive option is grayed out. In this situation, you can use a partition tool to change primary partition to logical drive.

IM-Magic Partition Resizer is partition software for all Windows users, so you can use it to convert a primary partition to logical partition on your computer. This partition software is able to change primary partition to logical without touching any original data.

Step1. Right click the primary partition and select "Convert to Logical Partition" option.