How Many Partitions We Can Create in Windows 10?

How many partitions does Windows 10 create?

The key to the question “How many partitions can Windows 10 create?” is not Windows 10. The problem is your disk. The number of partitions depends on which partition styles, MBR or GPT, you choose when you initialize your disk because different styles have different rules of partitions. Therefore, the problem “How many primary partitions can Windows 10 have?” also has a different answer.

For MBR disk, because the partition table on an MBR disk only has four slots, each slot can hold a single primary partition or be utilized to create an extended partition with a limitless number of sub-partitions, often known as "logical drives." As a result, an MBR disk may only contain 4 primary partitions.

However, for GPT disk, it provides an almost infinite number of partitions. The Windows implementation limits this to 128 partitions. The number of partitions of a GPT disk relates to the size of the entire capacity. So, for Windows users, a GPT disk can hold 128 partitions, and each works as a primary partition on an MBR disk.

How to partition a disk in Windows 10

When you have a new disk, the space on it will be shown as “Unallocated Space” in Disk Management.

Step 1. Right-click on the unallocated space on your hard disk, and select "New Simple Volume" in the menu.

Step 2. In the “New Simple Volume Wizard” interface, click "Next".

Step 3. Enter the size of the volume you want to create in MB or accept the default size, and then select "Next".

Step 4. You can use the default drive letter or choose a different letter for the partition, and then select "Next".

Step 5. Set the file system as NTFS and click "Next" to format the volume.

Step 6. Click "Finish" to complete the task.

Then you can store your files and other things in the new partition.

▶ Tip: You might meet the “New Simple Volume greyed out" problem.

How can we create more than 4 partitions?

Creating a partition is not a difficult task for many users, but if you need to classify your programs and data files in the future, you may find that you need more partitions. For the GPT disk, you can directly create new partitions if the space is sufficient. But for users who’re using MBR disk, can we create more than 4 partitions? Yes, you can, but you’ll do more work.

Normally, you have 2 options to use more than 4 partitions on your disk, one is to convert your MBR disk to GPT partition style, the other is to convert a primary partition to a logical partition (MBR disk allows users have infinite logical partitions.). However, if you use Disk Management, both methods will cause data loss. Disk Management could only convert a cleaned disk to MBR/GPT, or change a cleaned partition to a logical partition.

On this spot, you can employ another disk manager, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, which is a disk/partition managing tool for Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP users. This program can convert the system or data disk between MBR and GPT and convert the primary partition to logical both without hurting your data. And the operations are quite simple for all kinds of users.

Now, we’ll show you how to convert to GPT disk and convert primary partition to logical with this tool.

1. Convert to GPT

▶ Note: Please make sure your computer supports UEFI boot mode if the target disk is your system disk.

Step 1. Install and open AOMEI Partition Assistant. Right-click the system disk and select “Convert to GPT".

Step 2. Click “OK” in the pop-up window. Then, click “Yes”.

Step 3. In the main interface of AOMEI Partition Assistant, click “Apply” to start the conversion.

Now, you need to change the boot mode from Legacy to UEFI. After you convert to a GPT disk, you can use “Split Partition” or “Create Partition” to build a new partition. Here, we take “Create Partition” as an example.

Step 1. Right-click the partition on which you are going to share space to the new partition and select “Create Partition” in the menu.

Step 2: In the pop-up window, click "Advanced" to specify the information for the new partition, including partition size, label, drive letter, files system, and partition type (logical or primary). When it's complete, click "OK".

Step 3: To save the changes, please click "Apply" on the toolbar.

2. Convert a primary partition to a logical partition

If you want to convert your MBR disk to GPT, you can use it this way if your MBR disk has enough free space.

Step 1. Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, right-click on the primary partition you want to convert, select “Advanced” > “Convert to Logical”.

Step 3. Then, you’ll be asked to confirm the operation and just hit "OK" to continue.

Step 4. Click on "Apply" on the upper left and hit "Proceed" in the pop-up window to start the process.

Then, you can use this logical partition to increase the number of partitions on the MBR disk.

Ending

Now you have the answer to how many partition we can create in Windows 10. It’s decided by the partition style of the target disk. With AOMEI Partition Assistant, it’ll be much easier to adjust the number of partitions no matter it’s an MBR disk or a GPT disk. As you can see in the function menu, this practical tool also can clone disk, migrate OS to SSD, format partition, etc.