How to create a D drive in Windows – 3 ways

In this article, we will analyze how to create a “D” drive on a computer in the Windows operating system. Owners of laptops and desktop PCs are often faced with the need to create an additional partition on the hard drive designed to store user data.

Usually, on laptops or desktops (desktop PCs), one partition is created on the disk, not counting the hidden service partitions that are not displayed in Explorer. It is not always convenient for the user to store data in one place: system files, programs, and user data.

Content:

1. How to create a D drive on Windows using the system tools
2. How to create a local drive D on the command line
3. Create “D” Drive in AOMEI Partition Assistant
4. Article Conclusions

From the point of view of convenience and safety of information, it is desirable to create an additional partition on the computer’s hard drive. In this case, user data (photos, videos, music, etc.) can be stored not on the system partition of the computer.

With this option, the chances for the safety of information increase. In some situations, users have to reinstall the Windows operating system. During system installation, all data on the system partition is destroyed.

If there is one or more partitions on the hard drive, reinstalling Windows will not affect other logical drives of the PC. The operating system will be installed on the system partition, usually drive “C”. Data on drive “D” (and other partitions) will remain intact.

This guide has several instructions on how to create a “D” drive for computers running Windows 10, Windows 8, or Windows 7. When creating a new partition, we use several methods: built-in Windows tools and the help of third-party software.

You must understand that the designation – disk “D” in this article is conditional. On most PCs, the next partition after the “C” drive is given the letter “D”. If this letter is already occupied on the computer, for example, by a CD / DVD drive, or another disk, the new partition will receive a different letter. What we mean is that the “D” drive is a new partition, which may have a different letter, depending on the current configuration of the PC.

How to create a D drive on Windows using the system tools

For example, we will look at how to create a “D” drive on Windows 10. In Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 operating systems, all actions are performed in the same way.

We will use the system tool to create a new partition. Windows has a built-in tool: the Disk Management snap-in, designed to work with computer disks. Using the Disk Management tool, we will create a new partition (volume): the logical drive “D”, on which we will then store our data.

There must be enough free space on the computer’s hard drive to create a new partition. If there is very little free space, there is no point in creating a new “D” drive, because there will be nowhere to store information.

All work on creating a “D” drive using the “Disk Management” system tool is performed step by step:

1. Open the Disk Management snap- in in Windows using one of the convenient methods.

The Disk Management window displays all disks currently connected to the computer. In addition to the system drive “C”, hidden system partitions are displayed here, which are necessary for Windows to work.

We are interested in the system drive “C:”, from which we will separate part of the free disk space to create the drive “D:”. This computer’s hard disk contains system and service partitions, as well as a CD/DVD optical drive. The drive used to have the letter “D”, I changed the drive letter for it for clarity.

1. Right-click on the local drive “(C:)” and select “Shrink Volume…” from the context menu.

1. The Shrink Space Query window polls the volume to evaluate whether it has free space.
2. The “Compress From:” window displays the amount of disk space available for compression. If necessary, here you can select a smaller size for the created partition. Click on the “Compress” button.

In some cases, the amount of available space may be small despite sufficient free disk space displayed in Explorer. The reason for this may be non-relocatable system files that prevent the allocation of space. In this case, you will have to temporarily delete the paging file, disable hibernation, and possibly protect the system by deleting restore points. Defragment , restart your computer, and then try shrinking the volume again.

Unallocated space appeared after the C: drive in the Disk Management snap-in window. From this space, we need to create a “D:” drive.

1. Right-click on the “Unallocated” section, in the context menu, click on the item “Create a simple volume …”.

1. In the New Simple Volume Wizard window, click the Next button.
2. In the “Specify volume size” window, click the “Next” button.
3. In the Assign Drive Letter or Path window, the tool will substitute the first free letter to designate the new partition. In our case, this is the letter “D”. Instead of the letter “D” you can assign any free letter of the English alphabet.

1. In the “Format Partition” window, you can leave everything unchanged. In the “Volume label” field, you can write your own name, for example, “Local disk”, “DATA”, “vellisa”, etc. The volume label (displayed name) can then be changed in Explorer.

1. In the Completing the Create Simple Volume Wizard window, click the Finish button.

A new “D” drive will appear in the “Disk Management” window.

How to create a local drive D on the command line

Now we will look at how to create a “D” drive on Windows using the system tool: the command line.

Do the following:

1. Run Command Prompt as Administrator .
2. In the command line interpreter window, run the command:

diskpart

1. Next, run the command to show the disks of this PC:

list volume

The command prompt window will display all the drives on the computer. We need to find out the volume number corresponding to the “C” drive, since we will be creating a new “D” drive, taking free space from the system partition.

1. Run the command to select a drive:

select volume X

Instead of “X”, enter the number corresponding to the “C” drive on the command line. In my case, the command looks like this: “select volume 2”. You may have a different volume number.

1. Run the command to allocate some free space from drive “C”:

shrink desired=XXXXX

“XXXXX” is the amount of disk space in megabytes selected for the new partition. For example, 1 GB = 1024 MB, so for 20 GB you would enter “20480”.

After DiskPart has reduced the space on the “C” drive, we need to create and format a new drive.

1. Run the command to create the partition:

create partition primary

1. Format the partition to the NTFS file system. This command has a quick format selected:

format fs=ntfs quick

1. Now we need to give a name to the new section. In our case, there is a free letter “D”, you can use another unoccupied letter.

assign letter=D

1. Enter the command to exit the DiskPart program:

exit

Open File Explorer and make sure the local drive “D:” is created.

You may also be interested in:

• How to increase or decrease the size of the “C” drive in Windows
• How to partition a disk in Windows 7

Create “D” Drive in AOMEI Partition Assistant

To create a “D” disk, you can use third-party software: specialized programs designed to work with the computer’s disk system. For example, the AOMEI Partition Assistant program, which works in Russian, which has a free version, the capabilities of which are suitable for our purposes.

Do the following:

1. Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant on your computer.
2. In the main window of the application, right-click on the “C:” drive, and select “Split Partition” from the context menu.

1. In the Split Partition window, move the slider to the desired size, or enter a size in the New Partition Size field.

1. The “D:” drive will appear in the program window. Click on the “Apply” button.

1. In the Pending Operations window, click the Continue button.

Since we are separating space from the system partition, you will need to restart the PC to complete the operation. In the next window, you need to select one of the reboot methods:

• Reboot to Windows PE mode.
• Reboot to PreOS mode.

In PreOS mode, the operation will be faster, since there is no time spent on creating the Windows PE PE.

1. AOMEI Partition Assistant will do the job in any of these modes. Select the appropriate mode, and then click on the “OK” button.

1. Wait for the reboot to finish, during which the program will create a new disk partition on the computer.

Article Conclusions

If necessary, the user can create a new partition on the computer: a local drive “D” (or a drive with a different letter), which is used to store data. There are several ways to do this: in the Disk Management snap-in, from the Windows command line, or using a third-party program, such as AOMEI Partition Assistant.