How to Unpartition Hard Drive on Windows 10/11

Unpartition hard drive means removing existing partitions or volumes on the drive, effectively merging them into a single unallocated space. If you want to add unallocated space to another hard drive, unpartition hard drive can do it. Is it possible to unpartition a hard drive? Of course! Continue reading and this guide has provided 3 effective ways to unpartition a hard drive without losing data.

How to unpartition a hard drive on Windows 10/11

 If you don’t know how do I unpartition a hard drive in Windows 10? Don’t worry, here provides you three methods to do it:

1️⃣AOMEI Partition Assistant - a third-party tool for disk and partition. This Tool is suitable for all users, including beginners.

2️⃣Disk Management - This tool is more suitable for users who are experienced with computers.

3️⃣Diskpart CMD - This requires knowledge about command prompt parameters. It's complicated.

Follow the detailed step-by-step guide and you can unparititon a hard drive or unpartition an external hard drive on Windows 11/10:

▶ Method 1. Unpartition hard drive on easily and with no limit

Here I highly recommend AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard -a powerful disk partition manager that can not only delete all partitions on Windows 11/10/8/7 simply, but also wipe hard drive permanately. After unpartitioning the hard drive, the data on the disk will be deleted, and it cannot be restored by any data recovery software. Let’s see how it works.

If there is any important data on your hard drive, please back up your hard drive first. And then, you can unpartition a hard drive without data loss. 

AOMEI Partition Assistant provides a safe and quick way to delete partitions. With only 3 steps, everyone can complete that task:

Step 1. Install and run it. Your partition information will be displayed on the main interface. Right-click the drive you want to unpartition and select “Delete All Partitions” to open the related dialog.

Step 2. In the pop-up window, you can select the delete method. Click “OK” to continue.

* If the disk you select contains a system partition, it will notice you that your computer won’t start the next time after you deleted your system partition. So, if you want to delete system partition, you’d better create a bootable USB stick in advance so that you can boot your computer from the bootable media.

◥ Delete all partitions:Just delete all partitions on a hard disk. (The data which has been deleted is recoverable if you choose option one in this situation.)
◥ Delete all partitions and wipe all data on the hard drive: Delete all partitions and wipe all data on the hard drive. If you choose this one, even data recovery software may not recover data on these partitions. Therefore, think twice before you decide to do this operation. Or, you can just make a backup of these data before deletion as mentioned above.

Step 3. After that, you can see the hard drive show as unallocated space. Click “Apply” > “Proceed” to complete the operation.

★Tips:

If you delete a primary partition, the empty you get is called unallocated space. If you delete a logical partition by Disk Management, the empty space is called free space. If you want to get unallocated space, you need to delete the free space again.

If the hard drive you want to unpartition is a solid state drive, you can try SSD Secure Erase to unpartition it. This function will help you reset your SSD to the factory settings and restore it to its peak performance.

▶ Method 2. Unpartition hard drive with Disk Management

Cause using Disk Management to unpartition hard drive will delete all the partition on it, so all the data will be deleted. If you have important data on the hard drive, you’d better back up data on the hard drive in advance. Then, follow the steps below:

1. Press "Windows" + "R" to open the "Run" dialog box. Then type "diskmgmt.msc" and press "Enter" to open Disk Management

2. In the Disk Management window, right-click the partition you want to delete and click "Delete Volume".  Follow this step to delete all partitions on the hard drive.

3. After that, you will see the partition as unallocated space. And now you can allocate the free space to the adjacent partition to extend it.

Tip: If the partition you want to delete is system partition, you will find that the Delete Volume greyed out, which means you cannot use Disk Management to delete a system partition.

Although Disk Management can delete all partitions, there are still many restricts. Fortunately, there is a third party freeware that can delete partitions on the hard drive easily. Try AOMEI Parition Assistant and enjoy the benefits it brings to you.

▶Method 3. Unpartition a hard drive using Command Prompt

If you are familiar with the CMD command, you can run the following command lines. These commands allow you to delete or unpartition the hard disk at once. Follow the steps to unpartition a hard disk using CMD.

1. Press Windows + R and open the run window.

2. Type "cmd" to open the diskpart window.

3. Type the following commands one-by-one and press Enter after each command:

• diskpart
• list disk
• selected disk #
• list partition
• select partition #
• delete partition

4. Type exit and close the command window.

Why need to unpartition hard drive?

Usually, there are a few situations where unpartitioning a hard drive might be necessary or beneficial:

✦ Changing Disk Structure: Over time, you might have created multiple partitions on a hard drive to organize data or to install multiple operating systems. If your needs change, and you want to revert to a single partition setup, you would need to unpartition the drive.

✦ Simplification: Managing multiple partitions can become complex. If you find that you no longer need the organization provided by separate partitions, unpartitioning can simplify management.

✦ Reclaiming Space: When you have unused partitions, unpartitioning can help you free up space that was allocated to those partitions. This space can then be used for other purposes or to expand existing partitions.

✦ Data Privacy: If you plan to sell or give away a hard drive, unpartitioning and then securely erasing the drive can help ensure that no personal or sensitive data remains on it.

To unpartition hard drive on Windows 10/11, you can delete all partitions on the hard drive. This guide has provided 2 detailed solutions. Try AOMEI Partition Assistant or Disk Management to delete partitions.

Conclusion

Follow these simple steps, you can easily and effectively unpartition hard drive on Windows 10 or other Windows systems. In addition to delete all partitions, it also has many other useful functions like create/move/resize/format partition, convert MBR to GPT, clone disk, rebuild MBR and so on.

What's more, after upgrading to Professional Edition, you can allocate free space from one partition to another to extend it, or move installed applications to another drive to free up space as well.