Disk Management is an administrative tool for managing the volumes on your hard drive. It’s a pretty useful tool in-built into Windows that renders a third-party disk manager software unnecessary. Well, at least for most common purposes. It’s not very feature-rich but will get all the basic operations done smoothly.
So, if you wish to work on your hard drive volumes – create new drives, format, shrink or expand existing ones – Disk Management is the tool you need. Here is how to access it.
Accessing Disk Management in Windows 7
Follow the steps listed below:
- Click on “Start” and go to “Control Panel.”
- Go to “System and Security > Administrative Tools.” In case you have the icons view and not the category view, go straight to “Administrative Tools.”
- Open “Computer Management.”
- Click on “Disk Management” in the column on the left side, located under Storage. Disk Management loads in the wide middle section.
All the hard drives on your computer, internal and external, are listed here.
Accessing Disk Management in Windows 8
“Right click in the bottom left corner” of your Windows 8 desktop and a menu pops up with multiple options (Windows Key + X).
There are two ways to get to Disk Management from here:
- Go straight to “Disk Management option” from the menu. (Shown in above image)
- Go to the Control Panel and “follow steps 2, 3 and 4” detailed above.
Shortcut to Access Disk Management
If going all the way through Control Panel is hassle, just call up the “Run” prompt (Windows Key + R) and type “diskmgmt.msc.”
The Disk Management interface pops up.
Now, feel free to tinker around with your hard drive volumes. Just be sure not to format anything without creating a backup first.