Partitions

[miss mouth]

when i installed windows, i created a partition that was only about 2/3 of the drive capacity to install to.
My questions now, probably a very simple one, is how do i get access to the remaining space/partition to use it for storage - So i would have two drives listed in my computer?

 

[sminlal]

You need to use Disk Manager. Click "Start", right-click "Computer" and select "Manage". Then in the "Computer Management" window that opens up, look in the left-hand pane and click on the "Disk Management" link under "Storage".

In the lower part of the right pane you'll see a map of your drives - if you right-click in the unused space on your drive you'll have an option to create a partition and format it.

 

[miss mouth]

Awesome...I will give that a shot! Thanks!
One thing...the space is technically unpartitioned right now...by doing as you advise, will i be creating another (third) section or will it be taking the space i have now and making it usable?

 

[sminlal]

If you add a new partition and format it, you'll get a new "drive letter" that you can put folders in. For example, if you just have a "C:" drive right now, you'll end up with a "C:" drive and a "D:" drive.

If what you want to do is to simply make your "C:" drive bigger so that it uses the extra space, then you need to expand your existing partition rather than creating a new one.

I'm not an expert at expanding partitions because I always start off with a single partition that fills up the whole disk. However if you Google "windows expand partition" I'm sure you'll find some hints.

Before expanding a partition I'd be careful to make sure you have offline backups of any important data.