How to Split Partition in Windows 7 without Data Loss?

Why need to split partition in Windows 7?

Usually, hard disk drive (HDD) is partitioned with several partitions to store different files since the day it is been shipped by its manufacturer. However, sometimes users want to resize partition to make everything fit properly. In a word, a user wants to split HDD partition in Windows 7 in following situations.

• Only one partition on the disk when he bought it. For instance, there is only one system partition C on that disk. He needs to separate system programs with personal files, so that he can protect the files when system breakdown.
• Too many data categories need to be sorted. For example, he stores many personal data on the hard drive and wants it to be ordered.
• Hard drive partition size is not reasonable. Given that he has a 500GB HDD, 100GB for system drive C, 350GB for data drive D, and 50GB for personal files E. If he wants to store large-sized work documents, he might want to split the 350GB drive D to get another new partition.

Anyway, you may have other reasons for splitting hard drive partition on Windows 7. What counts next is to find out how to perform this task with less cost.

How to Split partition in Windows 7?

Windows 7 has built-in disk manager named Disk Management that allows you to split partition into several partitions in a kind of roundabout way. Let’s take a closer look.

Windows 7: Disk Management split partition

1. Open Disk Management: Right click on “Computer” icon on the desktop and select “Manage”. At Computer Management window, go “Storage” and then “Disk Management”. Or, you can run “diskmgmt.msc” to open it directly. Then you’ll get an overall vision about your hard drive partition layout.

2. Now, right click a redundant partition and select “Shrink Volume”.

4. It will query a while and tell you how much space you can shrink by. Click on “Shrink” and it will execute operation right now. You’ll get an unallocated space next to that partition.

5. Right click that unallocated space and select “New Simple Volume”. Finish that wizard. Till then, you have successfully split one partition into two.

That might be a little time-consuming yet it works. Nevertheless, you cannot split partition in Windows 7 if there is unmovable file on that partition. That is to say, it is hard to shrink C drive beyond half. What’s worse, you may get error like “There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation”. To solve covered troubles easily, it is not a bad idea to turn to professional third-party partition manager.

Split partition without data loss in Windows 7

With AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, you don’t have to shrink target partition at the beginning. This software makes mentioned several steps into one click. It also will reallocate files if you meet unmovable files during you split existing partition process. It has a graphical user-friendly interface, so even a computer novice can do a great job.

Supposing you have only one volume of 30GB and you want to split it into two or more volumes. Below will take Windows 7 split partition C for example.

Step 1: Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro Edition. Right click volume C and select "Split Partition".

Step 2: Drag the slider bar of drive C or fill in the detail information. Then, click "OK".

Step 3: In order to make sure these operations come into an effect, please select "Apply" on the toolbar.

Tips:

• This function also works on GPT disk, so feel free to split GPT partition with it.

• When there are four primary partitions on a MBR disk, if you want to split one of them, the partition that is being split will be converted to logical partition automatically.

It is easy to operate for all people and it just takes 3-10 minutes to finish the task. Above method also applies to split partition on USB flash drive, external hard drive and portable hard drive without formatting. If you want to split partition in Windows Server 2008, please refer to AOMEI Partition Assistant Server edition. So download the powerful tool, you will enjoy all the features of the drive assistant to manage your disk better.