How to Create Partition With CMD Dispart or Free Software

Introduction

In this article, you will learn how to create partitions, including primary partitions, using the free tool IM-Magic Partition Resizer along with the DiskPart command to set up the partition.

In addition to creating partitions for free, IM-Magic Partition Resizer can help you redistribute, move, convert, clone, migrate, and resize all partitions without losing any data.

DiskPart VS Disk Management VS IM-Magic Partition Resizer

The table below shows a comparison of related functions between these three tools. DiskPart and Disk Management are provided by Microsoft in Windows, while IM-Magic Partition Resizer is a third-party free utility.

	Diskpart	Disk Management	IM-Magic Partition Resizer*
Create Partition
Shrink Partition
Move unallocated space	NO	NO
Move Partition	NO	NO
Move System Reserved Recovery partition	NO	NO
Delete System Reserved Recovery partition	NO	NO
Extend Fat32 C Drive	NO	NO
Extend NTFS C Drive	YES when right unallocated space is contiguous to C	YES when right unallocated space is contiguous to C
Clone Disk	NO	NO
Migrate OS	NO	NO
Price	FREE	FREE	FREE
			Download for Windows 11-7 (100% Free) Download for Windows Server (Free Demo)

Note: All tools in Windows are limited to a maximum of 4 primary partitions. There are some primary partitions that do not appear in File Explorer; however, they can all be found in Disk Management or with third-party software.

Part 1: Create Partition Using Free Software IM-Magic Partition Resizer

If you're looking for the easiest way to create a new partition without risking any data loss on Windows 10/11, you can opt for the free partition manager IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free.

This software functions similarly to Windows Disk Management, making it easy to add new partitions to your computer.

Preparations: Download and install Partition Resizer on your computer.

Case 1: A New Disk to Create Partition/Volume

If it's a new disk, you can add it to your computer’s disk socket and then reboot your PC.

• Open Partition Resizer and check if your new disk is detected as uninitialized.
• Right-click the disk in the software, and choose the "Initialize" option.
• Follow the setup wizard to prepare the disk.
• Right-click the unallocated space, select "Create Partition," and follow the steps to complete the process.

Also read: 3 ways to initialize a disk

Case 2: An Old Disk with/without Unallocated Space

If your disk is an old one without unallocated space, you will need to shrink a volume to create unallocated space, which is required for creating a new partition or volume.

If your disk already has some unallocated space, you can start from Step 3 below to create a partition.

Step 1: Open IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free. Right-click on a partition with sufficient free space.

Step 2: Create unallocated space by adjusting the partition boundary.

Step 3: Right-click the newly created unallocated space and select "Create Partition."

Step 4: Assign a drive letter and format the new volume to ensure it works properly on your system.

Step 5: Click "APPLY CHANGES" to confirm and execute all the actions.

This free partition manager allows you to easily create new partitions on Windows 10 without losing any data or needing to reinstall the operating system.

Create Primary Partition (The Key: Less than 4 Primary Partitions)

First, you need to check how many primary partitions are on your disk. Windows usually reserves some partitions, such as the recovery partition or system reserved partition, as primary partitions.

For example, in the following image, there are 3 primary partitions reserved by Windows on the left side of the C drive. This means there are already 4 primary partitions.

System Reserved | Recovery Partition | GPT (Recovery Partition) | C

If you want to create a new primary partition, you will need to delete some volumes.

How to determine which recovery partition is being used as the current system recovery partition?

Use Command Prompt to Check WinRE Status

You can use a command-line utility to check which recovery partition is active for the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE).

Steps:

• Press Windows + S and type cmd, then right-click Command Prompt and select "Run as administrator."

• Type the following command to check the current WinRE status:

   reagentc /info 

• Review the output, which will provide the following details:

  • Windows RE Status: It should be enabled if Windows Recovery is active.
  • WinRE location: This will display the path where WinRE is currently stored, including the disk and partition number. For example, it might show something like Partition 3 on Disk 0.

  This information helps you identify the recovery partition in Disk Management to confirm which specific partition is active.

Once you have confirmed the partition is not the active recovery partition, you can delete it using the free tool IM-Magic Partition Resizer, as Windows built-in tools cannot delete recovery partitions.

Video: How to delete recovery/reseved partition

Also read: how to delete recovery partition

If you have already deleted primary partitions to bring the total to fewer than 4, you can create a primary volume. The process for creating a primary partition is automatic and follows the same steps as outlined above.

Question: Is it safe to delete the recovery partition?

Answer: Windows does not automatically or frequently generate a Recovery Partition. A new recovery partition will only be created during specific operations, such as system upgrades, recovery, or resets. If you manually delete the Recovery Partition, normal operations will not trigger the system to regenerate this partition automatically.

Part 2: Create Partition Using Diskpart (Unallocated Space Needed)

Part 1: If it's a new disk, initialize the disk and you will get unallocated space

Here are the steps to initialize the disk using Diskpart after connecting the disk to your PC:

1. Open Command Prompt with administrator privileges and type diskpart.
2. List all disks by typing list disk.
3. Select the disk you want to initialize: select disk <disk number>.
4. To initialize the disk, type clean, then use convert gpt or convert mbr depending on the partition style.

Part 2: If it's an old disk, create unallocated space by shrinking a volume

Here are the steps to shrink E drive if E has a lot of free space to create unallocated space:

1. Open Command Prompt with administrator privileges and type diskpart.
2. Type list volume to see the volumes, then select the E drive by typing select volume E.
3. To shrink the volume, type shrink desired=<size in MB> to specify how much space you want to shrink. For example, shrink desired=20480 to create a 20GB free unallocated space.
4. This will create unallocated space that can be used to create a new partition.

Follow these steps to create a partition using Diskpart when the unallocated space is available on the disk.

Part 3: Steps to Create a Partition using Unallocated Space:

Note: If the disk already has 4 primary partitions, Diskpart won't work with this step: create partition primary. Solution: Backup and delete some primary partition with free tool IM-Magic Partition Resizer to make the total primary partition less than 4 if you want to go with Diskpart.

1. Open Command Prompt with administrator privileges and type diskpart.
2. Type list disk to display all the disks. Select the disk that has unallocated space by typing select disk <disk number>.
3. Create the partition using the command: create partition primary. You can also specify the size with create partition primary size=<size in MB>.
4. Format the partition using format fs=ntfs quick or format fs=fat32 quick, depending on the file system you prefer.
5. Optionally, assign a drive letter to the partition using assign letter=<letter>.
6. Type exit to leave Diskpart.

Example:

Here's an example where a 10 GB partition is created on Disk 1, formatted as NTFS, and assigned the letter E:

diskpart
list disk
select disk 1
create partition primary size=10240
format fs=ntfs quick
assign letter=E
exit
    

Video Tutorial to Resize Partitions with Partition Tool