How to Open Disk Management in Windows – 10 Ways

In this article, I will explain how to open the Disk Management system tool in Windows in different ways. Disk Management is a built-in tool of the Windows operating system designed to perform administration: manage connected drives and partitions on a computer.

Many users are faced with the need to perform disk operations on their computer. To perform certain actions, you must have a tool with which you can perform the desired operation.

Content:

1. How to open disk management in Windows 10 (1 way)
2. How to open disk management in Windows 8.1 (2 way)
3. How to open disk management in Windows from the Run window (3 way)
4. How to open disk management in Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 (4 way)
5. Opening the Disk Management snap-in from Explorer (method 5)
6. Launching “Disk Management” from the Control Panel (6 way)
7. Logging into disk management through “This PC” (method 7)
8. How to open disk management in the command line (8 way)
9. How to open the Disk Control Panel in Windows PowerShell (9 way)
10. How to open the disk management tool from the system folder (10 way)
11. Article Conclusions
12. How to open Windows Disk Management (video)

Using the Disk Management system snap-in tool, the user can perform the following basic work with PC disks:

• View all drives connected to this computer, including hidden system partitions. The snap-in window displays CD/DVD/Blu-ray drives, as well as currently connected external drives: USB drives, external hard drives, memory cards.
• Creating new volumes (partitions), changing existing volumes, formatting disks, deleting partitions.
• Perform volume shrink.
• Assign or change a drive letter, disable a drive letter, or change the assigned drive letter for a removable USB device.
• Performing disk conversion between MBR and GPT.
• Converting a basic disk to dynamic and vice versa: from dynamic to basic disk.
• Create a virtual disk.
• Getting information about the status of disks.

To get this functionality, you need to access this system tool. Therefore, the user has a question about how to open disk management on a computer.

There are several ways to launch the Disk Management snap-in, which you will learn about in this guide. The instructions are suitable for different versions of the Windows operating system, among them there are universal methods.

How to open disk management in Windows 10 (1 way)

Now we will see how to open disk management in Windows 10 in the easiest way. This option works in Windows 10 and in Windows 8.1 due to the nature of the interface of these operating systems.

On Windows 10 or Windows 8.1, do the following:

1. Right click on the start menu.
2. In the menu that opens, click on “Disk Management”.

1. The Disk Management window will open on the desktop of your computer.

How to open disk management in Windows 8.1 (2 way)

The following method works on Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 operating systems. It also uses the right-click context menu from the Start menu, only it is called from the keyboard.

Do the following:

1. Press the keyboard keys “Win” + “X”.
2. A window will open in the lower left part of the screen in which you need to select the “Disk Management” item.

How to open disk management in Windows from the Run window (3 way)

Now we will analyze how to enter disk management using a universal method that works in different versions of the Windows operating system. To get access to disk management, we will be helped by executing a command from the Run dialog box.

Go through the following steps:

1. Press “Win” + “R” on the keyboard.
2. In the “Run” window, in the “Open:” field, enter the command “diskmgmt.msc” (without quotes), and then click on the “OK” button.

How to open disk management in Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 (4 way)

Another way: use the built-in Windows search services. Access to the search bar is different in different versions of Windows, we will not describe this in this article.

Consider the necessary steps using the example of Windows 7:

1. Enter the start menu.
2. In the “Search programs and files” field, enter the expression: “diskmgmt.msc” (without quotes).
3. From the search results, run the found tool on your computer.

Opening the Disk Management snap-in from Explorer (method 5)

Now let’s enter Disk Management from the built-in file manager – Windows Explorer.

Follow these steps:

1. Open File Explorer on your desktop.
2. In the “Location” field, type “diskmgmt.msc” (without quotes), and then press the “Enter” key.

Launching “Disk Management” from the Control Panel (6 way)

This option can be used in all versions of Windows using the Control Panel.

Do the following:

1. Launch Control Panel on PC.
2. In the “Control Panel” window, go to “Administrative Tools”
3. In the Administrative Tools window, double-click on Computer Management.

1. In the “Computer Management” console window, in the “Storage Devices” section, click on “Disk Management”.

Logging into disk management through “This PC” (method 7)

If your computer’s desktop has a This PC icon (Computer, My Computer), you can access Disk Management through the Computer Management console.

You may also be interested in:

• How to return My Computer to the Desktop in Windows
• How to increase or decrease the size of the “C” drive in Windows

Go through the following steps:

1. Right-click on the “This PC” icon.
2. In the context menu that opens, select Manage.
3. The Computer Management console will open, in which you need to launch the Disk Management tool.

How to open disk management in the command line (8 way)

Now we will try to open disk management through the Windows command line.

Do the following:

1. Launch Command Prompt on your computer.
2. In the command line interpreter window, type the command “diskmgmt.msc” (without quotes), and then press the “Enter” key.

How to open the Disk Control Panel in Windows PowerShell (9 way)

Instead of the command line, you can use a more powerful tool: Windows PowerShell.

Go through the steps:

1. Start Windows PowerShell on the computer.
2. In the Windows PowerShell window, run the command: “diskmgmt.msc” (without quotes).

How to open the disk management tool from the system folder (10 way)

I bring to your attention another way to launch the Disk Management snap-in from the Windows system folder. This option is somewhat more complicated than the previous ones, however, it can also be used under certain circumstances.

You will need to do the following:

1. Open File Explorer.
2. In the Explorer window, navigate to the path: “C:\Windows\System32”.
3. In the “System32” folder, find the “diskmgmt” file.
4. To launch the Disk Management snap-in, double-click the left mouse button on the diskmgmt file.

Article Conclusions

The Disk Management snap-in is required to perform various actions with disks and partitions on your computer. If necessary, the user can open Disk Management using various methods in the Windows operating system.