You may decide to delete your SSD partition for various reasons. How to delete partitions on SSD in Windows 11/10/8/7? In this post, three free and effective methods will be introduced step by step.
An SSD partition is a container that holds your data like the OS, programs, private files, etc. But sometimes, you may need to remove partitions from SSD to free up disk space or to manage your storage device better. Although deleting partitions on a hard drive is very easy to achieve now, data security on the deleted partition still matters a lot.
If the partition is unimportant or empty, you can delete it directly, but if the to-be-deleted partition contains a number of important files, cloning the partition as a backup is an effective way to keep your data safe. Besides, if only a few files on the drive need to be protected, you can choose to move files to another drive to avoid data loss.
Read further to know how to delete partitions on SSD in Windows 11/10/8/7. Three free and practical methods with step-by-step tutorial will be displayed in detail.
● Applies to: delete one partition ● Suitable for: beginners
Disk Management is the basic tool in Windows that is used to remove a partition from your internal hard drive. And the steps are extremely easy:
Step 1. Right-click the Start button and choose "Disk Management" to open the operating panel of Disk Management, you will see all the partitions on your SSD are presented.
Step 2. Right-click the partition you want to delete, click "Delete Volume" in the extended menu, and select "Yes" to confirm the operation. Then, your partition will be deleted successfully.
If you want to delete all partition on the solid-state drive, you have to repeat the Step 2 until no partition has been left on your drive because Disk Management only supports eliminating one partition each time.
In addition, you may the Delete Volume grayed out issue when you right-click the system C drive or EFI partition.
● Applies to: delete one partition; delete all partitions; delete system partition ● Suitable for: sophisticated users
DiskPart is another Windows built-in utility that is used to delete partitions but can do more than Disk Management. However, it requires more advanced computer knowledge because it completes the partition deletion via command lines. Below are detailed steps on how to remove partitions on SSD (both internal and external drives are available):
Step 1. Press "Windows" + "R" at the same time to open command prompt.
Step 2. Input "diskpart” and press "Enter" to launch the cmd.exe tool. Then, run the following command:
list disk (All disks on your computer will be displayed.)
select disk 1 (1 stands for the disk number of hard drive that contains to-be-deleted partition.)
list partition (All the partitions on the selected disk will be listed.)
select partition 1 (1 is the number of the partition you want to delete.)
delete partition
Tip: You can replace "delete partition" with "delete partition override" to force delete the partition that is protected by Windows like OEM recovery partition.
Step 1. Open the elevated command prompt as we shown in last part.
Step 2. Execute the following command lines:
diskpart
list disk
select disk 2
clean all
The steps on how to delete all partitions on SSD seem to be simple but you still need to think twice before executing the operation because the "clean all" command is not friendly to the drive's lifespan.
If you want to remove system partition like C drive from a disk, you need to enter the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) and run CMD to make it. Here are the steps:
Note: The deletion of the system partition will prevent you from accessing your Windows later.
Step 1. From the Start screen, click "Shutdown", then press and hold the "Shift" key when you select "Restart".
Step 2. Once you see the "Choose an option" window, select "Troubleshoot" > "Advanced Options".
Step 3. Click on "Command Prompt" and type the following commands:
diskpart
list disk
select disk n
list partition
select partition n (n is the number of the system partition you want to delete.)
delete partition
● Applies to: delete one partition; delete all partitions; delete system partition ● Suitable for: all levels of users
As mentioned above, DiskPart has more complete functions but difficulty in operation while Disk Management is easy but has more limitations. So, is there a tool that has complete features as well as simple operations? Luckily, a free and powerful third-party partition manager, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, can meet your needs.
Designed for Windows 11/10/8/7/XP/Vista users, AOMEI software comes with a graphic and user-friendly interface, allowing you to manage your disks and partitions easily by creating partition, formatting partition, cloning partition, resizing/moving partition, and of course, deleting partition.
So, if you're unwilling to remove SSD partition with Windows tools, you can switch to this partition manager. The guide on how to delete partitions on SSD via AOMEI Partition Assistant is given below.
Step 1. Install and run the software. In the main interface, right-click the partition that you want to remove, and choose "Delete Partition" from the extended menu.
Step 2. In the small pop-up window, we recommend you to choose "Delete partition quickly (delete partition without wiping data)" and click "OK".
Step 3. Go back to the main interface, click "Apply" and "Proceed" to commit the operation.
Step 1. On the main interface of AOMEI software, right-click the target SSD on which you want to delete all partitions and choose "Delete all Partitions".
Step 2. In the pop-up window, choose "Delete all partitions" and click "OK".
Step 3. Then, click "Apply" and "Proceed" to commit operation.
If you want to remove all partitions on SSD, it is not recommended to use CMD to run the "clean all" command on a solid-state drive too often because it might reduce drive's lifespan to some degree. To securely erase an SSD without damaging its lifespan and performance, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is a good choice. Its "SSD Secure Erase" is used to wipe a solid-state drive in a safe and fast way.
Step 1. Connect the target SSD to a Windows 7 PC because this feature only works on Win 7 computers. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Click "Wple" menu and select "SSD Secure Erase".
Step 2. Choose the SSD drive you need to erase from the given disk list and click "Next".
Step 3. You will find the SSD drive is in a frozen state. To continue with secure erase, you can refer to the given tutorial to perform hot swap for the SSD.
Step 4. After a successful hot swap, then click "Next" to start the SSD Secure Erase.
If you remove a partition from the solid-state drive, the data on it will be erased and the drive will become the unallocated space. You can use the unallocated space to create a new partition or to increase partition size like extending C drive.
As you can see in this post, you can delete all partitions on a hard drive via three different ways. By comparison, using a third-party partition deleting tool like AOMEI Partition Assistant is the easiest and most effective one.
On this page, we have discussed how to delete partitions on SSD with 3 free and useful methods. Now you can choose one based on your needs. Compared with Disk Management and DiskPart, AOMEI Partition Assistant is much more practical and easier. For example, If you want to delete system partition, you don't have to enter the WinPE to perform the operation like DiskPart.
Besides, this software is equipped with many useful features you may be interested in, such as migrating OS to SSD, cloning SSD to SSD, testing SSD speed, etc. If you are a Windows Server user, you can try AOMEI Partition Assistant Server.