Table of Contents
Introduction
Adding a secondary or additional drive to your PC for extra storage or system management.
Goal of Guide
To teach the simple steps of adding a new drive to your system on Windows 10 and Windows 11 using Disk Management.
Steps
1. Open Disk Management
Search for Disk Management in the Start menu and open it.
- Description: "Create and format hard disk partitions"
2. Locate the New Drive
Find the drive at the bottom of the Disk Management window (e.g., Disk 0, Disk 1, etc.).
- Match the drive with its storage capacity (GB/TB) to ensure you are working with the correct one.
3. Initialize the Drive – If Needed
If the drive is labeled "Not Initialized", follow these steps:
- Right-click the drive and select Initialize Disk.
- Choose MBR or GPT (GPT is recommended for modern systems).
4. Create a New Simple Volume
Right-click the Unallocated Space on the drive.
- Select New Simple Volume to start the setup wizard.
- Follow the wizard to configure the drive.
- Set Simple volume size in MB to the Maximum disk space in MB.
- This ensures you are using the full drive.
5. Assign a Drive Letter
Right-click the new drive and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.
- Click Add, then choose a drive letter (e.g., D, E, F).
- Click OK to confirm.
6. Format the Partition
- Leave the default option "Format this volume with the following settings" checked.
- File System: Keep it set to NTFS (recommended).
-
Volume Label: Change "New Volume" to your preferred name (e.g., "Storage Drive" or "Game Drive").
- This will be the name shown in This PC.
7. Verify the Drive
Open File Explorer and check if the new drive appears under This PC.
- If it doesn’t appear, restart your computer or check Disk Management again.