Can a Hard Disk Be Partitioned if Windows 10 Home Is Pre-Installed? How?

Let me make this short. I have a hard disk that has pre-installed Windows 10 on it. My question is whether the hard disk can be partitioned, and can I get some benefits from it? More importantly, I searched a lot of partition ways, but I have no idea which of them is better. Need help here.

Yes, a hard disk can be partitioned even if Windows 10 Home is pre-installed. However, the method varies depending on whether you want to keep Windows 10 Home or not. If you don't want to keep it, you can use Diskpart to clean and partition the hard drive. On the contrary, you can use an all-featured partition tool to create partitions without cleaning the hard drive.

Situation 1. Clean the hard drive before disk partitioning

In this case, you need to use the disk clean commands to delete all partitions before partitioning your hard drive.

Further Reading: DiskPart Clean Disk Command

Then, follow the steps to partition your hard drive:

Step 1. Enter the following command lines individually:

  • diskpart
  • list disk.
  • select disk N (Replace N with your disk number)
  • create partition primary size=xx (change the size according to your needs, 10000 equals 10 GB)
  • create partition logical

Step 2. Type exit to quit Diskpart when the process is done.

Situation 2. Partition hard drive with Windows 10 keeping 

I strongly recommend users use EaseUS Partition Master. A notable third-party program that focuses on solving all kinds of partition problems, such as extending partitions, merging multiple partitions, and deleting or recovering disk partitions.

Notification: The foolproof way of protecting your data from losing or being damaged is to back them up on another drive or portable device.

Copy your valuable data to another storage device and follow the steps to use EaseUS Partition Master:

Step 1. Use EaseUS Partition Master to check and create unallocated space on your target drive. Right-click a partition with much free space, and choose "Resize/Move."

Step 2. Drag one of the two ends of the partition to shrink the partition space and create unallocated space. Click "OK" to keep going.

Step 3. Enter the "Partition Manager" part, right-click on the target disk's unallocated space to choose "Create."

Step 4. Accept the default settings or change the partition size, drive letter, partition label, file system, and other advanced settings as you wish. Click "OK" to determine.

Step 5. Click "Execute 1 Task" and "Apply" to apply the changes.