How to Partition My External Hard Drive
- 1). Plug the external hard drive into a USB port on your PC. If you have an installation CD for the external hard drive, place that into your CD drive and follow the prompts to partition and format the drive.
- 2). Click "Start" and then right-click "My Computer" in Windows XP if you do not have a drive installation CD. For Windows Vista, click "Start" and then right-click "Computer."
- 3). Select "Manage." You will be shown a Computer Management window. Select "Disk Management" from the menu items on the left.
- 4). Right-click on the external drive and select "Initialize Drive" to begin the partitioning and formatting process. If there is already a volume on the drive, select "Delete Volume" first. Be warned that deleting a volume wipes out the data.
- 5). Follow the drive initialization prompts to partition and format the drive. You may partition the hard drive into many sections, each with a different drive letter. Adding more sections allows you to better organize the drive. For example, one drive letter can be for music, another for video.
