You bought a new computer and discovered that the hard drive is not divided into volumes. Next, we will look at how to create logical drives yourself, how to divide the hard drive into partitions when installing Windows, which are then displayed in the Computer Explorer window.

If the list of disks only contains the item Unallocated space, this means there is not a single partition on the hard drive. To partition your hard drive, click the corresponding button in the field that appears Size enter the volume capacity in megabytes and select Apply.

How to partition a hard drive. The process of creating a new partition

In order to partition a hard drive, a system partition is first created, therefore, a dialog box will open on the screen in which the system will ask you to create a partition. And so, we need to create two sections in unallocated space:

1. Select the disk and press Disk setup.

3. Here you are not asked to create a partition on this disk. The figure below shows that by default the entire volume of our hard drive is displayed. And we need to make two disks: Local disk "C" and Local disk "D"

4. In order to create Disk C, enter in the Size window: as much as you need. In my case it will be 50 GB or 51200 MB - click Apply. After Windows will offer to create an additional partition in which it will store system files, click OK.

5. The following figure shows that windows has created a hidden partition to store system files. This section will not be displayed on your computer in any way. And section 2 (Main) is the section that we just created. Next you need to create another partition for Local Disk "D" .

6. Highlight Unallocated disk space 0 and follow the link Create.

7. Windows will offer the remaining free space to create a partition, which is what we need. Click Apply to create Local Disk "D"

8. Now we have divided the hard drive into two parts, now we can continue

Installing Windows is not difficult if you know what to choose and what buttons to press. And only at first glance it seems that only advanced computer scientists can install an operating system or split a hard drive into several partitions. But first things first.

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There are two options for installing Windows: full installation (from scratch) and upgrade. First of all, let's figure out which type of installation is suitable for which cases.
Full installation is necessary if:

• you have a completely new computer without an operating system;
• the operating system previously installed on your PC is inoperable due to a virus attack or your experiments with its settings;
• you want to install a new version of Windows to replace the old one without saving programs and settings.

A full installation installs a new copy of Windows on your computer without saving your files, programs, and settings.
Windows update will help in cases where:

• the operating system is unstable after your experiments with it;
• After removing the virus, the Internet or any devices stopped working on the computer, or the OS properties you needed were disabled (for example, a printer connected according to all the rules does not want to work).

The update allows you to keep your documents, as well as Windows programs and settings, in working order.
Whatever Windows installation option you choose, you must have a boot disk with the required version of Windows and a disk with drivers and proprietary software for your PC or laptop.

The boot disk contains the Windows operating system itself and a basic set of drivers. It is called bootable because you can boot your computer from it and install the OS, even if it has a pristine hard drive without a single program.

What are drivers?

Drivers are programs that allow Windows to work with the devices (hardware) of your PC: motherboard, video card, sound card, etc. A driver disc is usually provided when purchasing a PC or laptop. In the case of the latter, I can also give you a disk with proprietary utilities from the laptop manufacturer and a recovery disk for the operating system. Why are these disks needed? The answer is quite simple: the basic build of Windows does not contain drivers for all devices on your computer. As a result, after installation, fresh Windows cannot recognize the video card or network adapter, and you will have to look for the necessary drivers on the Internet. Therefore, in normal computer stores, when buying a PC, you will always be given a disk with drivers for the motherboard and video card, at a minimum. Store them carefully in a safe place, as... if you reinstall Windows, they will help you avoid many problems, including broken sound or poor picture quality on the monitor screen.

We also recommend that you save all your documents, programs, music, movies, etc. during any Windows installation. in a safe place: on a CD, flash drive, removable hard drive. Please note that saving programs from the Program Files folder is pointless in most cases - they only work on the currently installed Windows. On a new system you are unlikely to be able to run them.

But, let's finish with the theoretical educational program and move on to practice.

Full Windows installation

When installing Windows completely, you will have the opportunity to completely format your hard drive and split it into several partitions. Let's do this exciting and not at all difficult thing.
First of all, we need to somehow boot from a bootable Windows CD/DVD. To do this, you need to set CD/DVD number one in the boot list in the BIOS. But first, a few words about the BIOS itself.

What is BIOS?

BIOS translated as Basic I/O System(from English “Basic Input/Output System”). The BIOS is responsible for many settings of the PC hardware, distribution of computer system resources and simple data input/output. Physically, the BIOS is made in the form of a microcircuit and is located on the computer motherboard. This chip is “stitched” with the BIOS setup utility - BIOS Setup. It allows you to change BIOS settings, including the computer boot order.

To enter BIOS Setup at the very beginning of the PC boot, press and hold the “Del” or “F2” key on the keyboard. The computer usually writes itself what exactly to press when turning it on, for example, “Press DEL to enter Setup.” The main thing is not to miss the moment and see this inscription in time.

Booting from CD-ROM can be enabled in the “Boot” section or in the “BIOS FEATURES SETUP” or “Advanced BIOS Features” section - the sections will be named differently depending on the BIOS version. For the BIOS version shown in the screenshot, highlight “CD-ROM Drive” and press the “+” button on your keyboard to move it to the top of the list. If you have a different BIOS version, carefully read the prompts at the bottom or right side of the BIOS Setup utility window. Although they are mostly in English, the names of the control keys can be understood.

Save the settings and exit the BIOS by selecting “Save & Exit Setup” or pressing “F10” on the keyboard. In different BIOS versions, this item may be called “Exit Saving Changing” or “Exit & Save Changes”. When asked to save changes, click “Yes”.
Now insert the Windows boot disk into the CD drive and restart your computer. The next time you boot, you will see the Windows Installer window. Wait a few seconds while it downloads the files necessary to install the operating system.

Carefully read what the Windows installer tells you and press “Enter” on your keyboard to continue.

Accept the Windows License Agreement by pressing "F8" on your keyboard.

Now we are faced with an important task - to divide the hard drive into several partitions. Our entire disk is perceived by Windows as an unallocated area, which the operating system will happily inform us about.

For convenience and security, you need to create two partitions in this unallocated area: C and D. In the future, Windows will treat them as two different disks. On partition C we will install the operating system itself, and partition D will be allocated for storing documents, program installers, music, etc. If in the future we have to reinstall the OS again, we will also install it on partition C, and all the information on partition D will remain safe and sound. You can create not 2, but 3 or more partitions. It all depends on the size of your PC's hard drive.
To create a partition, press the “C” key on your keyboard and enter the size of the partition to be created. It will depend on the size of your hard drive. If the disk has a size of 500 GB, then 150 GB can be allocated for Windows, if 80 GB, then 30-40 MB will be enough.

After entering the size of the first partition, press “Enter” on your keyboard and you will see the result of your work. Here it is, the newly created section C.

All that remains is to create partition D: select Unallocated area in the list...

... and press the “C” key on your keyboard again. Enter the size of partition D and press “Enter” on your keyboard. The second section is ready!

Now select the partition on which Windows will be installed - partition C. Press “Enter” on the keyboard.
The installer will prompt you to format the partition. For Windows XP and Vista, the partition must be formatted in NTFS (from the English “New Technology File System”, new technology file system). Select “Format partition using NTFS” and press “Enter” on your keyboard.

You will have to watch for several seconds or minutes as Windows formats the C partition.

At the end of this process, Windows will begin copying files to the hard drive, and you will again have to monitor it.

After copying everything you need, Windows will restart your computer.

If the next time you boot you see something like this on the screen...

...do not take any action. Since you haven't yet canceled booting from the CD-ROM, Windows gave you a choice: press a key and boot from the CD, or wait a couple of seconds and continue with the installation.
And finally, in front of you is not a blue and scary screen, but a completely nice picture - the Windows installation continues!

Now you will have to answer questions from the operating system and set some of its settings.
The first question is the language and regional settings. If Windows has selected the Russian language and Russian keyboard layout, feel free to click “Next”. Otherwise, click “Customize...” and tell the operating system which language you prefer.

The second question is your name and organization. It is advisable to provide this data in English. If you have a home computer, you can enter home in the “Organization” field. Click Next.

The third question is the product key. The key is usually written on the Windows box or disk, or on your license. Click Next.

The fourth question is the computer name and administrator password. Enter the computer name only in English and without spaces, for example comp1, vera, Mycomp, server, etc. The computer name should not be very long. If you have several computers, then their names should not be repeated. You don't have to enter the administrator password at this stage. Click Next.

The fifth and final question is date and time settings. Enter your location's current time, date, and select a time zone. If you want Windows to automatically change the clock on your computer when switching to daylight saving time and back, check the “Automatic switch to daylight saving time and back” checkbox. Click Next.

This is where the Windows questions end. You will have to watch for a few more minutes as the installation of the operating system continues.

Finally, installing Windows on your computer is complete! Having congratulated yourself on this long-awaited event, click “Next”.

Check the "Protect your PC now..." checkbox if you have high-speed Internet and want Windows to update automatically. Otherwise, check “Defer this action.”

You can also get a hint about the automatic update value by clicking the question mark in the lower right corner of the window and selecting the appropriate option.

Once again, clicking the “Next” button will take you to the user data settings screen. Enter the usernames that will work in Windows. If you are the only user of the computer, enter only one name in the first field.
Names must be entered in English and without spaces. Although Windows allows you to enter usernames in Russian, to avoid problems in the future it is better not to do this. Click Next.

Finally, the initial Windows setup is complete. Click “Finish” and you will be taken to a fresh and clean operating system.

Remember, at the initial stage of installing Windows, we partitioned the hard drive. During the installation process, we formatted partition C in NTFS and installed Windows on it. Section D was left unformatted. Let's correct this misunderstanding: select “Start” - “My Computer” and double-click on drive D.

The system will prompt you to format the disk. Click OK.
Make sure the File System field is set to NTFS and click Start.

Windows will warn you that formatting will erase all data from the disk. Since there is nothing on it yet, you have nothing to lose. Feel free to click “OK” to start the process of formatting drive D.

Once the D drive is formatted, you can store your data on it. And on drive C you will have Windows installed. So far there are only three system folders on it, but very soon a lot more will appear there as you work.

Remember, at the very beginning of the article we said that drivers are needed for the PC hardware to work. You can find out whether all devices are recognized by Windows by right-clicking on the “My Computer” icon and selecting “Properties”. Go to the Hardware tab and click the Device Manager button.

Question marks will mark those devices that Windows did not recognize. It's time to take out the driver disk and install them. First, the driver for the motherboard devices, then for the video card, sound, network, etc. With native drivers, your PC's hardware will work much better.
Now you can proceed to installing programs, setting up the Internet and performing other actions on your computer. In the meantime, we will touch on the issue of updating the system.

Windows Update

Windows Update- installation on top of an existing OS with preservation of documents, programs and settings. This installation can be launched directly from the operating system - just insert the Windows boot disk into the computer's CD drive.
From the suggested actions, select “Install Windows”.

In the "Installation type:" field, select "Update".
If you select “New Installation” as the installation type, you will run the full installation (we looked at it earlier) and your programs and settings will not be saved. They may remain in the Program Files folder (unless you format the disk during the installation process), but will not work in the new Windows.

Accept the license agreement and enter your Windows license key.

Refuse the offer to download the Windows update from the Internet and click “Next”. You will have to watch the Windows update process for several minutes. Fortunately, it is much faster than installing from scratch.

After updating Windows, most programs will work as before, but the Internet and network configurations may be lost, and you will have to configure them again.

Especially for the Yachainik project, Elena Carlton

Users often turn to a specialist if the task arises of combining their hard drives into a software logical array. How to merge disks without going to the wizard? All this is easy to do following the instructions in steps. She is in front of you.

Instructions: how to combine a hard drive into the BIOS

• We'll look at how to set it up via AMIBIOSSETUP. The interfaces of other bio manufacturers have similar options, so it won’t be difficult to figure out how to combine hard drives based on the example.
• Before booting your computer, run the Basic I/O Chip Configuration Utility. For AMIBIOS, the preset launch is the del key. It must be pressed periodically until the BIOS interface is visible.
• Select category " Serial ata Configuration". It contains the parameter " Configure Serial ata as". Its value should be “ raid”.
• By configuring hard drives for the specified port under array, save changes. To do this, select “exit” or similar.
• Before starting the computer, press the CTRL + I keys in parallel. If everything is done correctly, a configuration service will appear on the screen raid array.
• In the parameters for changes, select the direction of the array that will be created and the HDD devices to which the changes will be applied. Save the new settings and restart your computer.
• Once you enter your operating system interface, your computer will display multiple hard drives as a combined logical unit (as one Winchester).

What does the union give? How to merge drives

I hope you already understand how to combine disks into an array. Now I will describe the advantages of this step:

• Acceleration of the disk subsystem (array type - stripe). But there is also a negative connotation to this advantage. When one of the solid-state drives in an array fails, the rest of the information in the array is also lost.
• Duplicate mirror. The ability to duplicate information into several “mirrors” - an array of paired hard drives.

As soon as one of the disks becomes unusable, it is duplicated by the nearest “mirror”, which will create a reliable, fault-tolerant chain of data storage. Unfortunately, this type of array does not affect the speed.

Setting up for RAID controller

If your motherboard has a built-in controller raid then the instructions on how to combine hard drives will be slightly different.

1. After changing the BIOS settings, reboot your host as usual. Then press F2 successively. This initializes the array settings window.
2. In the optional menu, specify hard drives to create a unified structure.
3. Confirm that the array needs to be created (array create).
4. In the interface that appears, select an array category: type 0 - to speed up work with data, type 1 - to create fault-tolerant copies of your partitions.

operating system

To avoid wasting your time, make sure you have built-in or additional drivers raid for the current OS. As a rule, if there is an array controller on the board, then documentation and drivers must come with it on media - a floppy disk or CD.

Before combining disks - requirements for hard drives

The current hard drives for the array must be developed by the same corporation and be approximately the same size. If you try to combine a new HDD with an already working second hard drive, all information will be deleted in a certain way.

Therefore, unlike simple formatting, where data can be recovered using some software, data formatted in this way RAID will be deleted permanently.

Possibility of restoring raid elements on some hard drive of the array

In addition, arrays must be restored if one of the elements of this structure does not work correctly. For this procedure, the well-known Acronis Disk Director or similar software. But a description of this process is beyond the scope of this article, so I will limit myself to just mentioning this possibility.

If you are not satisfied with the disk space layout of your hard drive, you can resolve this kind of problem yourself. There is no need to seek help from a specialist; you can do it yourself. Right now you will be given the necessary recommendations regarding questions of how to combine hard drive partitions and what exactly is required in order to restore the hard drive directories. Believe me, everything is much simpler... The main thing is desire and attentiveness in actions. Let's get started, I guess.

Standard option

Using built-in Windows system tools, you can perform both partitioning and merging of disk space. However, this article is devoted to the second option - organizing a single volume from several components. Let's say you need to make one volume from two directories (C:\ and D:\).

• Open the Start menu and enter the command in the search bar - diskmgmt.msc.
• The “Management...” service window will open.
• Mark the partition “D” and use the right mouse button to call up the context menu, from the list of which select the “Delete volume...” command. Of course, all data on it will be destroyed. Confirm your action.
• The next step is to point the cursor to drive “C” - call up the menu and activate the “Extend volume” command.
• In the new window, click “Next” and then select the unallocated area (removed drive “D”).
• Completing the process is the “Done” button. After the process described above, the system volume “C” will expand, and the question of how to combine hard disk partitions can be considered resolved.

Effective organizer: Acronis Disk Director Suite

The above program can, if not do everything, then do a lot. Launch Acronis and in the next minimized window, check “Manual mode”. There are no fundamentally different actions in using the presented program, meaning the considered option. However, the functionality of the software significantly prevails over Windows tools.

• Select the drive (D) and when calling the context menu, select “Merge”.
• In the next window, indicate the section to join (C).
• In the case when the drive (D) has data and has not been formatted, you need to create a folder where the transferred information will be located.
• Next, give it a name.
• In the next window, click on the new folder, then confirm “OK”.
• The final action is to click on the shortcut in the form of a flag.

In order to understand how to combine hard drive partitions, one practical repetition is enough.

Partition recovery

A software failure is the main culprit when the system loses access to one of the hard drive volumes. However, Acronis can fix everything.

• Use manual mode again.
• In place of the partition there will be an unmarked area, by clicking on it, you need to select “Advanced”, then “Restore”.
• The next step is to select “Manually” and click “Next”.
• Then the Search Method window will appear, where Full is your choice.
• At this stage, you may see some kind of list through which hard drive partitions are restored. It is here, in this window, that all lost data is displayed. It is important to select from the list the section that most closely matches the size you are looking for.
• Now click on the familiar “Flag” and wait for the recovery process to complete, which the program will notify you about via a message.

In conclusion

As you can see, the question that has been tormenting you is “How to combine hard drive partitions?” in fact, it is easily resolved, moreover, it does not require special knowledge and IT skills from the user. To ensure that your hard drive works as long as possible and its performance always remains at its best, perform timely preventive maintenance: defragmentation, cleaning and checking for errors. Be effective!

Partition the hard drive during installation Windows XP, there is nothing simpler: if your hard drives are successfully identified in the BIOS, then you can partition the disk directly from the operating system installation program.

• Important: If you have Windows 7 or Windows 8 installed, you can partition the disk during installation using this article - it describes in detail how to install Windows 8 on a new hard drive. Installing Windows 8 is practically no different from installing Windows 7.

Let's set the BIOS to boot from the drive, insert the Windows distribution CD into it and reboot, then start the installation, accept the license agreement and...

Partition the hard drive during installation

At the very first stage of installation, we will find ourselves in a window where all found hard drives and the existing partitions on them will be displayed, their volume will also be indicated, and if the hard drive is new, the unallocated area will be indicated. And this is our hard drive in the form of an unallocated area with a capacity of 476 GB, if you don’t know how to get into this window, check out our article

We let's split the hard drive into three sections, press the letter C to create a section. The following window appears in which you and I must indicate the volume of our future section

We plan to create a partition for installing the operating system on it, this will be our drive (C:), 100 GB is enough for us, indicate the planned volume, then Enter

Let's create another section, again indicate the unallocated area and press C

indicate the volume we need, let’s say 100 GB again

Enter

Now you can select the first section C, press enter and format drive (C:) to the NTFS file system, after which the installation of Windows XP will begin