How to Use DISKPART to Create or Delete a Partition

iTechGuides is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Learn more

In this Itechguide, Victor teaches you how to use DISKPART to create a partition and assign a drive letter. The guide also covers steps to use DISKPART to delete a partition.

Option 1: Create a Partition and Assign a Drive Letter

DISKPART is one of the most useful CMD commands for System Administrators. This section covers steps to use this must-know tool to create a new partition and assign a drive letter to the partition.

Step 1: Open Command Prompt as an Administrator

To use DISKPART, you need to open Command Prompt as administrator. Here are the steps to run CMD as Administrator…

• Type command prompt in the search box. Then, from the search results, right-click Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator.

• When you receive a User Access Control (UAC) confirmation, requesting you to allow the “app to make changes to your PC”. On the UAC prompt, click Yes.

Step 2: Create a Partition

After opening Command Prompt as administrator, use the steps below to create a partition.

• On the CMD Prompt, to open the DISKPART command prompt, type the command below and press enter.

DISKPART

• The DISKPART CMD prompt will open.

• On the DISKPART prompt, use the LISK DISK command to list all available disks – type the command and press enter.

LIST DISK 

• The LIST DISK command displays all the disks on your PC. The next step is to select the disk you want to use DISKPART to create a partition on.

• To select the disk, use the command below – enter the command and press enter.

SELECT DISK 1 

• The last command should return “Disk # selected successfully”

• If your disk is Offline, you need to take it Online. Use the command below.

ONLINE DISK

• The command should return “DiskPart successfully onlined the selected disk”. To confirm that the disk is now online, run the LIST DISK command.

• To be sure that your disk is still selected, run the SELECT DISK command again. Then, to see if there are any partitions on the selected disk, run the command below – this will list all available partitions on the selected disk.

LIST PARTITION 

• If there are partitions on the disk, they will be displayed. Otherwise, the command will return “There are no partitions on this disk to show”.

• To use DISKPART to create a partition, type the command below. Then, press enter. Before you press enter, read the notes below the command.

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY SIZE=n

The above command will create a Primary partition. If you want to create an Extended partition, replace PRIMARY with EXTENDED. In the command, n is the size of the partition in Megabytes. To create a partition with all available disk space, DO NOT specify the SIZE parameter.

To read more about disk partitions, read this How-to-geek guide – Hard Disk Partitions Explained.

• Here is a real sample command – this DISKPART command creates a partition with all available spaces on the selected disk.

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

• If DISKPART returns “DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition”, the partition was created. Otherwise, if it returns an error, read the error details and fix the problem.

• To confirm that the partition was created, run the LIST PARTITION command again. The partition will now be listed!

Step 3: Assign a Drive Letter

After creating a partition, you need to assign a drive letter to the partition. Here are the steps…

• Still on the DISKPART prompt, type the command with the format below.

ASSIGN LETTER=N

N is your drive letter. The command below assigns letter D to the partition you created in the last section…

ASSIGN LETTER=D

• If the drive letter is not available, you will receive an error message – try another letter.
• In the command shown in the image below, I used drive F and the drive letter was assigned successfully!

Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Support on Ko-Fi

Option 2: Delete a Partition

If you can DISKPART to create a partition, you can also use DISKPART to delete a partition. Here are the steps…

• Open Command Prompt as Administrator. Then, on the CMD prompt, type this command and press the enter key.

DISKPART  

• The DISKPART prompt will open.

• On the DISKPART CMD prompt, type the LIST DISK command. Then, press enter.

LIST DISK 

• The LIST DISK command lists all the disks on your PC. The next step is to select the disk you want DISKPART to delete a partition from.

• To select the disk, use the SELECT DISK command. Here is an example command that selects disk 1.

SELECT DISK 1

Replace 1 with your disk #. The next step is to list partitions on the select disk.

• Use the command below to list available partitions on the disk.

LIST PARTITION

• Then, select the partition you want to delete with this command…

SELECT PARTITION 1

Replace 1 with your partition #

• Finally, to use DISKPART to delete a partition, type the command below and press enter.

DELETE PARTITION

• To see how to run the commands above, see the image below…

As you can see, it is very easy to use DISKPART to create or delete a partition!

I hope you found this Itechguide helpful. If you were able to use DISKPART to create or delete a partition by following this guide, click on “Yes” beside the “Was this page helpful” question below.

You may also express your thoughts and opinions by using the “Leave a Comment” form at the bottom of this page.

Finally, for more Command Prompt Itechguides, visit our Windows Command Prompt page.

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.