Forum Discussion
How to partition a hard drive from Windows 10 without losing data?
Hey everyone! I'm looking to reorganize my computer's storage by partitioning my hard drive, but I'm pretty nervous about losing all my files in the process. I've heard it's possible to do this safel...
I just did this on my Win10 rig: I plugged in an external SSD and ran Control Panel → Backup and Restore (Windows 7) → Create a system image, plus synced docs to OneDrive—belt and suspenders.
Then hit Win+X → Disk Management, right-click C: → Shrink Volume, and on the new Unallocated space choose New Simple Volume (NTFS); it only touches free space, so your files stay intact.
Pro tips: temporarily suspend BitLocker, run chkdsk /f, free space/disable hibernation if shrink is tiny, and don’t convert to Dynamic Disk—you’ll be fine.