How to Partition USB Drive in Windows 7/8/10/11 Simply?

Learn how to multi partition your Kingston/Sandisk external USB flash dirve using Diskpart and free partition manager AOMEI Partition Assistant in Windows 11/10/8/7/XP.

Posted by @Lucas December 17, 2024 Updated By @Lucas May 25, 2023

Why do we need to partition USB drive?

USB hard drive or memory card, as the removable storage, is the most ordinary device in people’s daily life. They are widely used for storing important data and files, system backup images, etc. With a USB drive, people can transfer data and files between computers and different removable storage devices conveniently and smoothly.

Sometimes, you do need to multi-partition a Kingston or SanDisk USB drive, such as creating different partitions to store different data or creating a bootable USB. Therefore, the question of how to partition a USB drive will come into your sight.

Can you partition a USB drive?

Actually, you can perform this task using both Diskpart and free partition manager. Connect the USB drive to your PC first and make sure it is detected by Windows. Then we can start. The following are the detailed steps of using diskpart to partition a completely blank USB drive.

Firstly, open Diskpart by pressing the Windows key and R key (same time), type in “diskpart” in the pop-up window, and then hit Enter. For Windows 7 and XP, click on the Windows icon, select “Command Prompt” & click “Run as Administrator”. For Windows 8, press the Windows key and X key (same time), and click “Command Prompt (Admin)”.

β—€ Note: To execute a command line, please press Enter key after each move.

Secondly, enter “list disk”. Then you will see all your disks (it is important you know which disk is the USB key).

Thirdly, enter “select disk X” (X stands for the USB key). Enter “create partition primary”-> “list part”, and then enter “select part 1”-> “active”-> enter “format fs=ntfs label=’Tabernus’ (the label is optional).

How to easily partition USB drives?

The process may take some time. But what you must know is that using Diskpart to create partitions has an obvious disadvantage: Diskpart does not support the creation of FAT32 partitions larger than 32G.

This will cause a lot of headaches for many people. So to get a better simple and easy-to-use solution, you’d better turn to AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard for help. As a mighty and comprehensive partition manager, AOMEI Partition Assistant can help you with the following cases:

● USB drive partition has been corrupted. ● Format a USB hard drive or memory card that the command line doesn’t work. ● Resetting and wiping out all existing data to become a blank USB drive. ● Make a bootable USB drive. ● Simply reset and reformat a USB drive.

This free tool allows you to partition USB flash drives to NTFS or FAT32 in Windows 11/10/8/7/XP. 

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Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Right-click the USB drive, and select “Create Partition”.

Step 2. Specify the size and drive letter for the new partition. You can also edit partition labels, file systems under the Advanced tab.

Step 3. Then you get a new partition G: in your USB drive. Click “Apply”.

Tips: 1. You can create partitions on your USB drive via AOMEI Partition Assistant by repeating the above steps. 2. Please note that Windows will recognize only the first primary partition on a removable device. Therefore, after this operation, the second partition will not have a drive letter as shown in Windows Explorer. However, you can keep two partitions recognized in other operating systems like Linux.

Conclusion

Here is how to create a partition on a USB drive in Windows. Using AOMEI Partition Assistant, you can avoid the complicated instructions and restrictions of Diskpart to partition the USB drive. In addition to partitions, you can also use AOMEI Partition Assistant to merge partitions or convert NTFS to FAT32 without data loss. However, nothing will change unless you download it and start using it, so enjoy it.

If you have more needs such as cloning disk, moving folders or installed apps, migrating the operating system from GPT to GPT, etc., you can upgrade AOMEI Partition Assistant to the Professional version