How to Create a Partition on XP Vista Without Restarting
- 1). Right-click on the "My Computer" icon, located either on the desktop or within the "Start" menu. Once there, select the "Manage" icon, then select the "Disk Management' icon. This will tell the computer that you wish to make changes to the magnetic storage medium on the system.
- 2). Right-click on the free space on any existing hard drive within your system, which will cause a new menu to appear. On this menu, select the option to create a "new simple volume." This tells the computer that you wish to create a new partition out of an existing partition.
- 3). Input the desired size of the partition. While the partition has to have a minimum size of around eight megabytes (due to the storage of necessary files such as the partition inventory), the amount of free space on the drive will become your only limitation as far as the maximum size of the partition.
- 4). Assign the new partition whichever drive letter you wish, as it will have no real impact on performance. Finally, format the partition using the NTFS file system, and tick the "Quick Format" option on the bottom to minimize the time spent waiting for the completion of your new partition. After that, simply sit back and wait---the time required will depend on the speed of your computer and the size of the partition you wish to create, so expect to spend upwards of 10 minutes before the computer sets the partition.
