You can certainly partition a hard drive in Windows without extra software, but you won’t be able to do things like resize them or combine them without some extra help. Safe, easy-to-use partition tools weren’t always available, and even when you did find something you liked, it was expensive. These days, there are plenty of completely free programs that can do the job that even the novice tinkerer will love. Whether you’re expanding your Windows system partition, shrinking it to make room for an operating system dual-boot setup, or combining your two media partitions for those new UHD movie rips, these free tools will surely come in handy. Not only does the free version support regular functions like formatting, deleting, moving, resizing, splitting, merging, and copying partitions, but it also can check the file system for errors, run a surface test, wipe partitions with various data sanitization methods, and align partitions. In addition to the above, MiniTool Partition Wizard is able to move the operating system to a different hard drive, as well as recover lost or deleted partitions. There’s also a file recovery program, disk space analyzer, and benchmark tool built-in. One thing we don’t like is that it doesn’t support manipulating dynamic disks. Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP are the confirmed supported operating systems. You can resize, merge, create, format, align, split, and recover partitions with this program, as well as copy whole disks and partitions. Some of the partition management features are limited and offered only in their paid, professional version. One such feature is the ability to convert between primary and logical partitions. You can also use AOMEI’s tool to create a bootable Windows flash drive, move an operating system to an entirely different hard drive, and wipe all the data from a partition or drive. If you want extra features like dynamic to basic disk conversions, you have to pay. This program can be used in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP. Changes you apply to a partition with this program aren’t actually applied in real-time. Modifications exist only virtually, which means you’re only seeing a preview of what will happen if you save the changes, but nothing is actually set in stone yet. Changes don’t take effect until you click the Execute button. We particularly like this feature so things like expanding and copying partitions can be done in one swipe instead of having to reboot between each operation, thus saving tons of time. The list of pending operations is even shown on the side of the program so you can clearly see what will happen when you apply them. You can also password protect EaseUS Partition Master, hide partitions, upgrade the system drive to a larger bootable drive, merge partitions, defragment a drive, and copy Windows to a different hard drive. One thing we don’t like about this program is that several features are only available in the full, paid version, but are still clickable. This means you might sometimes try to open something in the free version only to be prompted to buy the professional one. It works with Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7. No matter what kind of file system you’re using, this tool should be able to handle it, with support for all the common ones, like FAT, HFS+, NTFS, and EXT2/3/4. There are other features, too, like imaging a whole drive for backup purposes, converting between MBR and GPT, creating FAT32 partitions as large as 1 TB, editing boot records, and rolling back changes by auto-backing up partition layouts. When Active@ Partition Manager resizes a partition, you can define the custom size in either megabytes or sectors. Unfortunately, it can’t resize locked volumes, which means it won’t let you change the size of the system volume. This program should work just fine with Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP, as well as Windows Server 2012, 2008, and 2003. Editing a partition’s size is easy because you can choose the exact size of the free space before and after the partition, using either a regular text box or a sliding bar to visually see the size increase or decrease. A partition can be formatted in any one of several file system formats, some of which include EXT2/3/4, NTFS, FAT16/32, and XFS. Changes GParted makes to disks are queued up and then applied with one click. Because it runs outside the operating system, pending changes don’t require a reboot, which means you can get things done that much quicker. A small but particularly annoying issue is that it doesn’t list all the available partitions on one screen like most other free disk partitioning programs. You have to open each disk separately from a drop-down menu, which is actually easy to miss if you’re not sure where to look. This download takes up a few hundred megabytes of space, much larger than most of the other programs on our list, so it may take some time to download. This program can be used to change the file system of a disk and create or delete partitions. Any changes you make are queued up and can be undone because they are only applied when you save them. Cute Partition Manager is completely text-based. This means you can’t use your mouse to select the different options — it’s all done with the keyboard. Don’t let this scare you off, though; there aren’t that many menus, and so it’s not really a problem. Some actions you can perform to a disk include resize, move, delete, copy, format, and wipe a volume, as well as change the volume’s label, convert between a primary and logical volume, and run a surface test. Like most of the partition management software in this list, Macrorit’s program doesn’t actually make any changes to the partitions until you apply them with the Commit button. One thing we don’t like is that it doesn’t support dynamic disks. This program can run on Windows 11, 10, and older versions of Windows. A portable edition is also available. Whether you’re creating a new partition or resizing, deleting, or formatting an existing one, this program has you move through a step-by-step process to do it. Common file systems like NTFS, FAT32, and HFS are supported. Unfortunately, a number of additional features are disabled, available only in the pro version. The supported operating systems include Windows 11, 10, 8, and 7. With this tool, you can move partitions, resize partitions (even the active one), copy partitions, as well as change the drive letter and label, check the partition for errors, delete and format partitions (even with a custom cluster size), convert NTFS to FAT32, hide partitions, and wipe all that data off of partitions. All of those actions are extremely easy to find because you just have to right-click the device you want to manipulate. As you perform these actions, you’ll see the program update in real time to reflect them so that you can see how it will look when everything has been applied. Then, when you’re happy with the results, use the big Apply Changes button to put everything into action. If you have to reboot for anything to take effect, IM-Magic Partition Resizer will tell you so. You can also view the properties of any drive, to see its NT object name, GUID, file system, sector size, cluster size, partition number, physical sector number, total number of hidden sectors, and more. The only downfall we can see with this program is that a few of the features require that you upgrade to a paid edition. For example, you can’t make the bootable media program that they support unless you pay for it. The official list of operating systems that you can install this software to is Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, and 2000. There’s an OS migration wizard and clone disk wizard, so if you need to do those things, it’ll walk you through the whole process of choosing the source and destination locations. Over 10 operations are listed off the left of the program for easy access. These let you do things like resize/move the volume, merge two volumes, delete or format a volume, repair the file system, run a surface test, and more. This program runs on Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP. One thing we really like about Tenorshare Partition Manager is the interface they chose to use. The options are easily accessible from the top of the window instead of having to push through menus to find what you need, like with most tools. Several file system types can be viewed like EXT2/3/4, Reiser4/5, XFS, and JFS, but partitions can be formatted only in the NTFS or FAT32 file system. One thing we don’t like that sets it apart from nearly all the programs from above is that it can’t resize the partition that Windows is installed to, very often the thing you want to use one of these programs for! It should run on most Windows operating systems, including Windows 11, 10, 8, etc.
