Without data loss, provided that there is one partition converted to the main volume with the letter (C:), the operating system is installed on it and nothing should happen to it, how do you like the problem?

• Note: If you have a new operating system installed, you can divide your hard drive into partitions using the operating system itself, without resorting to third-party programs, here is the article, if something doesn’t work, use the universal one and free program in Russian.
• If you are on Windows 7, read here. If you have a new laptop, then you need this article.

Such tasks are very easily solved with special disk management programs, for example: Acronis Disk Director, Paragon, I work with all of them. The fact is that when working with such programs, it is easy to damage the partition table of the hard drive, then the computer will not be able to determine the location of the main partition with the operating system among the new volumes created by you, what then? That's right, you simply won't be able to boot into Windows. Acronis, also working from a boot disk, sometimes confuses partition letters.

• Therefore, before working with Acronis Disk Director, you need to insure yourself as much as possible and create a backup of all partitions of your hard drive. Every user should be able to create a backup of the operating system and, if necessary, deploy it back.

These detailed articles will help you master indispensable operating system recovery tools. These tools will restore your Windows under any circumstances.

I do not want to intimidate you in any way, but simply warn you to be very careful when working with software for working with computers. hard disk partitions. I remember in the old days, when everything was just beginning, I always had several floppy disks in my pocket with the Partition Magic program in bourgeois language, yes, floppy disks, it worked from them, you insert it into the floppy and you always don’t know how it will end, but I will say Honestly, I only let you down a few times. And then I met Acronis and have not parted since then, although now I carry a large suitcase with me and there are always several boot disks with this program. Well, it's time to get down to business, otherwise you'll run away from the site and won't partition your hard drive.

As I said, we have the Windows XP operating system, but everything that will be said below can also be applied to Windows 7. The operating system has one system partition-disk (C:) with a capacity of 111.8 GB, which we will use divide into two sections, as a result we will have another drive (D:), don’t worry about your files on drive (C:) nothing will happen. Here it is our drive (C:), all alone.

Let's launch our program

In the main window of the program, our hard drive is visible as one partition-disk (C), with a capacity of 111.8 GB. Let's go with you to Actions and tools, and then Resize volume

change the volume size of 111.8 GB to, for example, 55.8 GB, so we will have a logical volume (D)

We have some unallocated space and we will convert it later into a logical volume (D)

Apply pending operations

Friends, now you can create the second partition you need, right in the operating system, go to Computer->Manage->Disk Management, right-click on the unallocated space and select Create Partition from the menu. Or you can use our program again.

We run our program again, select unallocated space with the mouse and click Create Volume

Select the type of volume to be created: Basic

Specify unallocated space

The following article contains instructions that detail the process of changing hard drive partitions on your computer using version 10 of Acronis Disk Director Suite. After all, it is the division of the hard drive that facilitates faster structuring of information, which means that significantly less time will be spent searching for it.

The article is divided into the following thematic parts:

• 1. Create a boot disk or flash drive.
• 2. Changing, moving sections.
• 4. We make two sections from one and vice versa.
• 5. Additional information.

A short excursion into the basics

Before we begin operations with the hard drive, let's figure out what hard disk partitions (or just disks) are and delve into their organization.

Our HHD (Hard Disk Drive) begins with a master boot record of 512 bytes in size, which is located in the first sector of the hard drive. In the English version it sounds like master boot record, MBR in abbreviated form. Judging by the name, we can say that this entry is used to download something. Actually this is true: it contains a bootloader that starts the entire system. In addition, the entry includes a partition table. This table contains important information about the location of all partitions on the hard disk. It looks like this: the boundaries of each disk are indicated in the form of starting and ending sector numbers, their file system (FAT32, NTFS or others), department type (a number in hexadecimal), and type (active or passive). In principle, it can be identified with a political map of the world in which the sections are states, but presented in an alphanumeric format. This table can accommodate up to four such records, which correspond to 4 sections, respectively. The disks registered there are the main ones, among which only one is in an active state. It is from this that the operating system will load.

It is clear that such a limitation of only 4 sections is no good. Here, an extended partition comes to our aid, which, in turn, can accommodate any number of logical drives. A kind of trick that saves the situation. Since the extended partition also occupies one of the four entries in the table, there is only room left for three main disks, but now you can create as many logical disks as your heart desires.

Why is it better to use Acronis Disk Director?

Let's move on to a description of the utility for managing hard disk partitions and how it works.

In this article we will use Acronis Disk Director. Let me point out right away that it costs money! But not big ones (up to $20). You can use the following analogues: Partition Magic, GParted, but I will not vouch for the stability of their operation. The main positive aspect of the program is its careful attitude towards information stored on the hard drive. Those. when simply changing partitions or other operations not related to formatting or deleting disks, you can rest assured that your files will not be lost anywhere. Another positive point is deferred operations. And if in Russian, then while you are working with the utility, the sections remain untouched until you click on “Run” and confirm your intentions. Only after this the changes will take effect, so there is an opportunity to change your mind.

Further praising the utility, I will draw attention to the function that makes it possible to create a boot disk or, in general, make a “bootable flash drive”. This is indispensable when you need to change something in partitions, but the operating system does not want to cooperate, i.e. is not downloading. In this situation, we simply install Acronis Disk Director on a foreign computer, burn the disk, and then we need to boot from it on the non-working device where we need to change partitions. Perhaps then we’ll move on from the general to the specific, so to speak, let’s begin a detailed narrative.

1. Create a boot disk or flash drive

First, you need to get Acronis Disk Director. The first time you start it, it will ask you to select a mode. Choose manual.

We look for the “Service” tab, and there we select the “Create bootable disks” item.

After this, in the left menu you need to select what we will write to the boot disk or flash drive.

For reference: Included with ADD is another utility called Acronis OS Selector. It has nothing to do with our topic, but if your device has more than one operating system, but 2 or more, then you will be interested in taking a look at it.

In general, this program can be recorded on any digital media, we usually use a disk or flash drive, because they are easier to work with, you can also save it as an image or even make a network boot for it. Right now we're focusing on writing to disk.

You can try the disk: download the program from it and put the hard drive in order.

2. Changing, moving partitions

It’s clear that in order to do something with a section, it would not hurt to first decide which section we are not happy with with its location or volume, then select it and click “Change section”.

Did you click? Then a window appeared in front of you where you can implement your plans. And remember the main thing is that you can’t just enlarge a partition; this program cannot expand the limits of the hard drive, like any other. This means that in order to zoom in, we need an unallocated area before or after the partition. Such an area is created at the expense of other sections, by reducing or deleting them. Thus, in the program window with the mouse we can move the section, change its size, and create unallocated areas.

You can also specify the exact size of the partition. When finished, click on “OK”.

For the changes to take effect, click “Execute” (the button in the form of a finishing flag), and then “Proceed.” The computer should respond to this by rebooting.

3. How to create a section? How to delete a partition?

As we found out above, you cannot create a new partition without an empty area on the hard drive; if you already have one, that’s good; if not, then we create it using other disks.

After that, we select the location where the new disk will be, what size it will be, by highlighting the unallocated area, and click on “Create partition.”

In the window that opens, we indicate all the data for the future partition: size, file system, location, name, type (logical or primary, while remembering the restrictions for primary partitions).

All is ready!

Partitions are the easiest to delete. Nothing new has been invented here, so select the section, click “Delete”, confirm.

The program allows us to simply get rid of the section or write the sequences “0” and “1” several times instead. This is a more reliable way to delete information. But, as a rule, regular removal is enough.

Once again I will duplicate the scheme for saving changes: 1. Execute (button in the form of a finishing flag) 2. Proceed 3. The computer reboots automatically.

So we looked at the main, so to speak, basic functions, and now let’s move on to more effective tools that will help in everyday life.

4. We make two sections from one and vice versa

It often happens that you need to move files from one partition to another. Taking into account previous skills, we can reduce the size of the partition with files, then create a new one on the unallocated area and send the files there. But especially for these cases, our program has a separate function - “Partition Separation”.

To use it, as usual, you select the section we will work with and click “Divide”.

After this, select the second child section, which together with the first will form a new one, and click the usual “Next”.

A little time, and the utility asks us to indicate the name of the folder where the contents of the second section should be sent. And again “Run”, “Proceed” and restart the computer.

5. Additional information

In addition to the above actions, Acronis Disk Director can do many other things:

• Copy, move disks on a hard drive. Those. create identical copies of partitions and move them to an unallocated area of ​​the hard drive. For such an operation to succeed, the empty area must be larger in size than the partition being moved.
• Change the letter, name, and label of the section.
• Changing cluster sizes, formatting disks.
• Changing the file system (FAT32 to NTFS and vice versa), changing the disk type (from primary to logical and vice versa).
• Operations with data located on disk.
• Creating hidden partitions or hiding existing ones (the operating system will not display them, but they will be present on the hard drive).
• Defragmentation of partitions and checking them.
• Disk recovery. An irreplaceable thing in case of failures in the table, when the entire hard drive is presented as a large unallocated area.
• And so on and so forth.

A detailed guide to changing partitions on a hard drive using the utility Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.

A short introduction

Before moving on to operations with hard drive partitions, you need to understand what a partition is and how partitions on a hard drive are generally organized.

At the beginning of the hard drive, in the very first sector, there is a master boot record 512 bytes long. It is also called MBR. It contains the bootloader, which directly starts loading the operating system, as well as a partition table. The partition table contains information about where a particular partition is located on the disk surface. Roughly speaking, there are entries like “from such and such an address on the hard drive to such and such a partition is located C:\ with the NTFS file system, type 07h, primary, active.” There can only be 4 such entries in the partition table. The sections that are written there are main. Among the main sections there can be only one active. The system will boot from it by default.

Naturally, not everyone was happy with the limitation of 4 partitions on the hard drive. This is how the extended section appeared. An extended partition can contain any number of logical ones. This is how we managed to bypass the limitation of 4 partitions per hard drive. Since an extended partition also requires an entry in the partition table, the hard drive can only have 3 main partitions and an unlimited number of logical ones. Now you can move on to working with sections.

The Acronis Disk Director utility is excellent for working with partitions. This utility is paid, but it costs quite a bit ($15-20). There are also analogues: Partition Magic, GParted, but they are less reliable.

The advantage of this utility is that it treats user data with care. That is, when changing a partition or other operations, you will not lose data on the hard drive (except in cases of formatting or deleting partitions). Another advantage of this utility is deferred operations. In other words, when working with the program, nothing actually happens to the hard drive partitions. Changes are made only after pressing the button Execute and confirmation of transactions. Before confirming transactions, you can cancel any of them.

Another advantage of Acronis Disk Director Suite is the ability to create a bootable disk or flash drive. This can be useful when Windows does not boot, but you need to perform partition operations. In this case, you can install Acronis Disk Director on another computer, burn a disc there, and then boot from it on the computer or laptop where you need to manipulate the partitions. In essence, the version for Windows and the version of Acronis Disk Director, which boots from disk, are no different. Let's begin our discussion of working with this utility by describing the procedure for creating a boot disk with this utility.

1. Create a boot disk or flash drive with the Acronis Disk Director utility

First of all, you need to install the Acronis Disk Director utility itself. When you first start, you should select Manual mode:

On the menu Service select an item Creating bootable disks:

In the menu on the left, select what we will write to a disk or bootable USB flash drive:

This utility can be written to a disk or flash drive, which at the time of creation is connected to the laptop, save as an image, and also organize a network download of this utility over the network. In this example, we are interested in writing to disk:

That's all. Disc recorded:

Now you can boot from this disk (or flash drive) and work with the partitions.

2. Resizing and moving partitions

To resize and move a section, you need to select the section whose size will be changed and click on the button Change section:

A window will open where you can reduce or increase the size of the partition, as well as change its location. Please note that to increase the size of a partition, there must be an unallocated area before or after it. It is formed after deleting other sections or after reducing their size. In the window, you can use the mouse to change the size of the section, as well as move it, creating unallocated areas before and/or after the section:

You can also specify specific values ​​in the appropriate boxes. When you're done, press OK:

That's all. Now we have an unallocated area after the section where we can create a new section.

Important Note: To apply the changes, you need to click on the button Execute Get started

3. Creating and deleting partitions

As noted above, to create a partition you need an unallocated area. Select it and click on the button Create a section:

In the window that appears, indicate the partition size, file system, type (logical primary. On a hard drive, as was said at the beginning, there cannot be more than 3-4 primary partitions), as well as the name, size and location of the new partition:

Click OK and we get the result:

Let's now look at how to delete partitions. To do this, select the desired section and click on the button Delete:

Acronis Disk Director allows you to simply delete a partition or write sequences of “0” and “1” in its place several times. This is necessary to securely delete information. In most cases, simple removal is enough:

Important Note: as already mentioned, to apply the changes, you need to click on the button Execute(button with a checkbox), and then to the button Get started. The laptop will reboot and changes will be made during boot.

Of course, creating, resizing and deleting partitions are necessary functions, but there are more effective tools for everyday tasks. They will be discussed below.

4. Merging and splitting partitions

Sometimes there is a need to move certain folders to a separate partition. You can, of course, first reduce the size of the old one, then create a new partition on the unallocated area and transfer the files there. Acronis Disk Director has a separate tool for such cases called .

First, select the section that you are going to split and click on the button Divide:

In the window that appears, select the files and folders that need to be transferred to the new partition:

We divide the free space between the old and new partition:

Here's a new section:

Similarly, you can merge one section with another. First you need to select a section, which needs to be connected to another, and press the button Merge:

That's all. As in previous cases, to apply changes you need to click on the button Execute.

5. Other operations on partitions

Acronis Disk Director also allows you to perform the following operations:

1. Copy and move sections. This means creating an exact copy and moving the partition to another unallocated area of ​​the hard drive. For a successful move, the size of the free area must be larger than the size of the data on the partition;
2. Changing the drive letter and label;
3. Converting the FAT32 file system to NTFS, as well as changing the partition type from logical to primary and vice versa;
4. Hiding sections. The partition will not be displayed in Windows, but will be present on the hard drive;
5. Formatting a partition, as well as changing the cluster size;
6. Changing the partition type. This is sometimes useful when working with Windows Automatic Repair technologies. Described in more detail here: ;
7. Checking and defragmenting the partition;
8. Working with files on a partition;
9. Partition recovery. A very useful thing. It may be necessary when the partition table is damaged, when the entire hard drive acts as an unallocated area;
10. Many other operations.

You can read more about the capabilities of this utility in this guide: / .

That's all.

You can ask questions about working with hard drive partitions in this forum thread: . Please post all questions in the appropriate forum topic.

You can make all comments and suggestions regarding the article itself through this contact form: Please note that if something doesn’t work out for you, then you should only ask on the forum. These types of emails will be ignored.

How to partition a computer's hard drive using Acronis Disk Director 12=

If Windows contained all the functionality that is implemented using third-party software, just to install the operating system you would need a mega-flash drive with an impressive weight. But this is not even the main problem. Imagine the horror that would grip the inexperienced minds of computer neophytes if they were faced with a hyperflow of information hitherto unknown to them. Therefore, the operating system can only be the basis for unlocking the potential of a computer given the vector set by the user’s interests. And sometimes the standard capabilities of the operating system can have a kind of “underformat” - get something frivolous for free, and, if you please, look for sensible things on the side and for a fee. For example, to work with partitions of a computer's hard drive, Windows has a disk management utility in its arsenal of standard tools. But its capabilities are very limited: the maximum that can be done in terms of reorganizing disk space is to create one partition at the expense of the volume of another. To carry out any more or less serious operations with disk partitions, you must resort to the help of special programs - disk managers. The leading position in the software market in this niche is occupied by Acronis Disk Director, a professional product for system administrators that provides extensive functionality for working with computer disk space.

About Acronis Disk Director 12 Among other functions, the latest current version of Acronis Disk Director 12 allows you to resize disk partitions, copy and move them, split and merge without losing existing data. Acronis Disk Director 12 can be written to bootable media to work with disk partitions on a computer without an operating system installed. Acronis developer products, including the Disk Director disk manager, are paid. The free demo version of Acronis Disk Director 12, which can be freely downloaded from the program’s official website after registering with an email address, will be of little use. Any operations to organize disk space can be carried out only if the volume size does not exceed 100 MB.

Dividing a hard drive into two partitions Let's look at an example of dividing a hard drive into two partitions. We have a 100 GB hard drive, on which there is a single partition - drive C, which was created automatically during the Windows installation process. In our case, we will leave the system only 30 GB of space, and from the remaining disk space we will form a non-system partition - disk D. This example of disk space distribution is a test one, and it is not exemplary. In fact, to realize the capabilities of modern versions of Windows, a system partition of approximately 100 GB in size is precisely what is required. But, regardless of the size of the hard drive, regardless of whether we are dealing with a classic hard drive or an SSD drive, the program’s operating procedure will be the same. Acronis Disk Director 12 takes away excess space from the system partition without losing data or crashing the operating system. Naturally, the space taken from the system disk must be free. In the main window of the program we will see a clear picture of the existing disk partitions, and to change it, in our case, call the context menu on the system partition and select the volume partition command. The same command is duplicated by a separate option on the toolbar on the right.

In the new window, set the size of the space taken from the system disk, which will be formed into a new partition. In our case, in the “New volume size” column we will set 70 GB. Click "Ok".

Returning to the Disk Director window, we will see the future picture of disk space distribution. To apply the performed operation, click the corresponding button at the top of the program window.

Next, click “Continue” in the information window with the parameters of the operation being performed, after which we agree to restart the computer. The computer will reboot and Disk Director will enter preboot mode, where it will redistribute the disk partitions. After starting the system, in the program window we will see exactly the picture of the disk partitions that we planned. Forming several disk partitions at once The process of forming a second disk partition at the expense of the space of the first is discussed above. It will do if you need to do anything, it is to divide the section into two parts. But if we are talking about a radical redistribution of disk space with the creation of several partitions, Acronis Disk Director 12 has more convenient functionality for these purposes. Let's look at how to create several disk partitions from one at once using the volume resizing function. So, again we have a hard drive with the operating system installed on the only system partition. Right-click on it and select resizing the volume. In the “Volume Size” column, set the system partition to 30 GB. Click "Ok". Returning to the main Acronis Disk Director window, we will see that the remaining disk space is now indicated by unallocated space. We call up the context menu on the latter and select the only thing that is offered to us - “Create volume”. The Create Volume Wizard will launch. Click “Next”.

It has long been known that partitioning a hard drive into partitions is mandatory. And at least two: installed on one partition Windows operating system, the other stores all important data (movies, photos, music, documents). It is better if the disk partitioning procedure is carried out during Windows installations, but you can painlessly perform it at work Windows operating system. The program will help us with this Acronis Disk Director Suite, which can not only split a hard drive into partitions, but also combine several partitions into one.

You can download the latest version of Acronis Disk Director Suite from the official website of the developer company: www.acronis.ru. Also on the above web page download the documentation for the program in pdf format (link “Documentation”). It will be useful to you when installing and working with Acronis Disk Director Suite.

Before experimenting with your hard drive, we strongly recommend that you make backup copies of the information on it. This way you will be 100% sure that even in the event of a failure (for example, the electricity suddenly goes out during creating partitions) your data will not be affected.

We split the disk into partitions

On first launch Acronis Disk Director Suite will prompt you to select an interface mode. Select Manual Mode and click OK. You can always switch between modes through the menu “View” - “Automatic Mode” or “View” - “Manual Mode”.

To create a new section, select the section in the list and click the “Create sections” button.

The Partition Creation Wizard will launch. First of all, you will need to select partitions from the list, using the free space of which a new partition will be created. Check the selected section and click the “Next” button.

Determine the size of the partition to be created in MB or GB. Acronis Disk Director Suite will indicate the minimum and maximum allowed sizes of the new partition. All you have to do is set the slider to the desired position and click the “Next” button. Do not select a partition size that is too small for a partition that will be used to install an operating system or store a large amount of information. A partition of 50 GB in size is suitable for the OS, and 100 GB or more for your data. If you plan to store movies, music, photos and other multimedia content on the partition you are creating, keep in mind that it takes up quite a lot of space. So, 1 movie of average quality stretches 700 MB - 1.4 GB; 1 song takes up about 5–7 MB of disk space; 1 uncompressed high-resolution photo – 1–3 MB.

Select the type of partition to be created by carefully reading the characteristics of each of the proposed types in the “Description” field. To store data, select the “Logical” partition type; for the operating system that will boot by default when the computer is turned on – “Active”; for the second operating system, the boot of which will be launched through the boot manager - “Primary”. Click the "Next" button to continue.

Select a file system for the new partition. For Windows operating systems s versions 2000, XP, Vista, 2003, Windows 7, Windows 8 choose NTFS for Windows 98-ME– FAT32. If you plan to install the Linux operating system on the new partition, select a file system suitable for it. Click the "Next" button to continue.

Assign a drive letter to the new partition by selecting it from the list and click Next.

Enter a description (label) for the new partition, which will appear in the My Computer window next to the drive letter assigned to the partition. This is for your convenience. If you are unsure or do not want to enter anything, leave the field blank. Click the "Next" button to continue.

Acronis Disk Director Suite will show you the expected structure of the hard drive after creating a new partition. The created section will be marked with a green checkmark. If you are sure that you have specified all the options correctly, click “Finish”. Otherwise, you have the opportunity to click the “Back” button and correct the settings of the new section that are unsatisfactory to you.

After clicking the “Finish” button, you will be taken to the main window of Acronis Disk Director Suite and see the new partition with your own eyes.

However, the program has not yet started creating it: this task is placed in the list of pending operations in Acronis Disk Director Suite. To start the process of creating a new partition, click the “Run” button.

You will see a list of operations that the program is about to perform. Since we didn’t plan anything other than creating a new section, this list contains tasks directly related to this topic. Click the “Proceed” button to start the partition creation operation.

After restarting the computer, you will see a blue screen with the results of Acronis Disk Director Suite. Wait a few seconds (minutes) for the program to finish creating the new partition.

The next time you boot the operating system, you will see the newly created partition.