Both Windows 11 and Windows 10 offer specialized apps and tools that you can use to delete partitions. If you need to delete a partition or volume from a disk, you don’t need to install third party applications like EaseUS Partition Master. Instead, you can use applications or commands built into the operating system to manage disks and partitions. Here’s how to delete any partition using Windows graphical apps like Disk Management or command line tools like DiskPart (in Command Prompt, PowerShell or Terminal).
IMPORTANT. The methods shown in this guide work the same on both Windows 11 and Windows 10.
Can I just delete sections? It is safe? What happens when you delete a section?
To answer any of these questions, you must first understand what a partition (or disk volume) is. Luckily, it’s pretty simple: Partitions are nothing more than a way to split a drive into several smaller partitions. In a sense, partitions are drives within drives, or drives within drives, if you will.
When you get a new HDD or SSD, the first thing you do is smash it. In other words, you create one or more partitions on it. If you don’t partition the drive, you won’t be able to use it for data storage. You can create a partition during Windows Setup or from within Windows using built-in tools such as Disk Management. Once created, Windows will show them as independent drives in Explorer and any other file manager. Partitions retain their size whether they are empty or not, and regardless of how many files and folders they contain.
Now that you know what a partition is, you also have an idea of what will happen if you delete a partition, right? Removing a partition from a disk will free up the space it occupies. If this partition was normal and you only stored personal files on it, you can simply delete it. However, first make sure you move everything you need to another drive. All data on it will be erased and lost when the partition is deleted.
There are also some special sections that you can’t just delete. For example, the system partition on which Windows 11 or Windows 10 is installed, OEM partitions where your computer manufacturer has stored important data (such as operating system images or drivers), and recovery partitions that are created by Windows during installation and are used to save vital files. to restore the operating system. However, if you’re sure what you’re doing, you can force delete any partition using the “remove partition override” command in DiskPart. Read the second method in this guide to find out how.
Start Disk Management first. A quick way to do this in Windows 11 or Windows 10 is from the WinX menu. Use the Win+X keyboard shortcut or right-click (press and hold) the Start button on the taskbar to open it. Then select “Disk Management” from the WinX menu.
In the Disk Management window, find the partition you want to delete and right-click on it (or press and hold on it if you’re using a touch screen). You can do this in the list of volumes at the top of the Disk Management window.
You can also do the same in the disk and partition list shown at the bottom of the Disk Management window. Select Delete Volume from the context menu.
The “Delete Simple Volume” prompt will appear, warning you that deleting the partition will erase all data on it. Before clicking “Yes” to continue, make sure you back up any important data on this partition. Otherwise, you will lose it.
After a few seconds, Disk Management will delete the selected partition. Now you can see that it is marked as unallocated like in the screenshot below.
Everything is ready and now you can close the Disk Management app.
Common DiskPart Windows 10/11 commands (examples study)
Before you can use DiskPart commands in Windows 10, you must first list, and then select an object to give it focus. When an object has been focused, any DiskPart commands that you type will act on that object.
To view what DiskPart can for you, just type help to see a list of commands.
Next, we will take some of the most common commands that Diskpart uses as examples for you to get a further understanding.
Section 1. Most common Diskpart commands on volume in Windows 10/11
Because when selecting a volume, the focus remains on it until you select a different volume, “select volume” command may not be used in each operation. Besides, the examples are performed one after one and the effect of the previous operation will be viewed in the next operation. If you only need to perform one of the operations, you need to select the volume before using the corresponding command.
Note: Each time you type a command, you need to press “Enter” key to apply it.
1. Delete Volume
And then, you will receive a message says: DiskPart successfully deleted the volume.
Note: You cannot delete the system volume, boot volume, or any volume that contains the active paging file or crash dump.
2. Create Partition
And then, you will receive a message says: DiskPart succeeded in creating the specified partition.
To create a partition, there must be unallocated space on the disk.
3. Format Partition
And then, you will receive a message says: DiskPart successfully formatted the volume.
The above command means to perform a quick format on the partition. It will be formatted with NTFS file system and labeled as Windows 7. To create other file system partition like FAT, FAT32, you just need to replace ntfs with fat or fat32. The label can be any name as you like.
DiskPart cannot format 32GB+ partition to FAT32. To format a large hard drive to FAT32, you have to turn to a third-party partition manager.
4. Assign Drive Letter
And then, you will receive a message says: DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.
5. Extend Partition
And then, you will receive a message says: DiskPart successfully extended the volume.
The above command means to add 20480MB (20GB) to the volume 6. If no size is given, all of the contiguous unallocated space on its right side will be added.
To extend a partition, there must be contiguous unallocated space on its right side.
6. Shrink Partition
And then, you will receive a message says: DiskPart successfully shrunk the volume by 10GB.
You can reduce the size of a volume only if it is formatted using the NTFS file system.
7. Mark Partition as Active
And then, you will receive a message says: DiskPart marked the current partition as active.
Section 2. Most Common Commands on Disk in Windows 10/11
Diskpart delete partition override including efi system partition
Video – How To Delete All Partitions Disk/SSD Using Windows 10 including the system partition
To delete the EFI system partition, you just need to select it in diskpart cmd, and then use cmd ‘delete partition override’ and then it could be deleted. You may go back to disk management to check if the system partition efi volume was deleted.
Why need to delete partitions?
Usually, there are 2 reasons why people want to delete a partition in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7.
● Free up disk space: A partition can take up redundant data and occupy large storage space. For example, some PCs have a recovery partition, and lots of people will copy recovery partition to another drive or USB as a portable recovery drive and delete the recovery partition later to have some free space.
● Better manage storage space: It can be harder for disk management when there’re too many partitions on the hard disk. So, many people delete unnecessary partitions, create unallocated space and allocate them to other existing partitions. Before deleting a partition, you can move apps from your current partition to another partition to avoid data loss.
Как удалить раздел с помощью DiskPart в командной строке
Если вы являетесь поклонником командной строки, вы можете использовать командную строку или PowerShell. Запустите приложение, которое вы предпочитаете, или запустите его в терминале Windows. Then follow the steps below and use the following commands to remove the partition you don’t need or need anymore:
The first command launches the partitioning tool:
Second command you need to execute:
This command lists all volumes (partitions) on your Windows computer or device. Specify the volume number of the partition you want to delete. Find it in the Volume ### column.
Using DiskPart to list all volumes on all drives
After you have found the volume/partition to delete, you must select it. To do this, run the following command in DiskPart:
select volume #
Replace # with the actual volume number of the partition you want to delete. In the example below, I wanted to delete the partition with the letter F. Its volume number is 5, so my command was:
select volume 5
Select partition to delete in DiskPart
Now it’s finally time to run the real command to delete the DiskPart partition. The command that deletes the partition with the number you selected earlier:
The selected section should be deleted immediately.
IMPORTANT. There are special partitions that Windows usually doesn’t allow you to delete. For example, you generally cannot delete protected partitions, such as the Windows Recovery partition or the OEM partition, which is a partition created by your computer manufacturer. However, you can bypass Windows security by using the force argument to the delete partition command in DiskPart. If you want DiskPart to forcefully delete a partition, after selecting it, run the following command:
If you want to continue working in an open command line application, close the DiskPart tool by entering this command:
Otherwise, you can just close Command Prompt, PowerShell, or Windows Terminal.
How to delete partition/disk with diskpart and force delete?
Video – how to delete partition using cmd
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Br-6OmTw9O4%3Fstart%3D16
Diskpart delete partition VS delete disk
If there are more than 1 partition on your disk, you need to delete them one by one if you want to delete the whole disk information and partition scheme.
between delete partition and delete disk is delete partition by diskpart can be done with ‘delete partition’ or ‘delete partition overide’, the later one is force delete partition, while delete disk needs to delete partition several times when the disk contains multiple partitions.
How do I delete a partition in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7?
Diskpart is a snap-in for disk management on Windows. Different from Disk Management, all the operations are based on command lines. Using Diskpart to delete partitions is very common nowadays.
1. In the search box at the bottom left of the interface, type “cmd” and hit “ENTER” to launch Command Prompt.
● list disk
● select disk 1 (1 is the sequence number of the disk where the partition you want to delete is)
● list partition
● select partition 1(1 is the sequence number of the partition you want to delete)
● delete partition (delete partition override)
delete partition: This command is used to delete normal partitions like data drive, or the partition where there is no OS-related files on.
delete partition override: These functions to use diskpart commands delete partition force. To force delete the partition that is protected by Windows like OEM recovery partition, you can use this command .
3. Type “exit” to back to the desktop.
★ If you are using a dynamic disk, delete the partition can delete all dynamic volumes on the disk. To delete a dynamic partition, you can use the “delete volume” command instead.
★ If you want to delete all partitions on time, please type “clean disk” after “list disk”.
Using the Disk Management to delete partition
However, there’re many limits if you use Disk Management to delete partitions.
★ The to-be-deleted partition shouldn’t be the boot drive, otherwise, you will fail to delete the partition.
★ You can’t remove the OS while it’s still running.
★ You have to delete all logical partitions first before deleting an extended partition.
★ You can’t delete partitions on a removable device like a USB on some old versions of Windows.
Using powerful third-party freeware to delete partitions
As mentioned above, you could run into much trouble if you use Diskpart or Disk Management to delete partitions. Fortunately, by applying AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, you can manage your hard disks and their partitions easily by performing different operations including partition creations, partition formatting, and of course, partition deletion. So, if you’re unwilling to delete partition with Diskpart, you might as well turn to this very powerful software.
This tool supports creating a bootable Win PE media that helps you delete system partition if Windows does not allow you to delete a partition that is related to the OS. This tool can delete a single partition or delete all partitions on your disk at one time. This can be finished only in three clicks.
Step 1. Launch the program. You can see the basic environment of your hard drives with a concise interface.
Step 2. In the main tab. Right-click the partition you need to delete. Then click the “Delete Partition” button.
Step 3. After clicking Delete Partition, it will popup a window to choose the way to delete the selected partition and they’re “Delete Partition Quickly” or “Delete Partition and wipe data on it”. Here we highly recommend you choose the former one. The latter will take more time and the data will be erased permanently. Click OK.
Step 4. Click Apply at the tool bar to launch the progress.
Now, you can go to Disk Management and check whether the partition has been deleted successfully.
Diskpart alternative partassist. exe of AOMEI Partition Assistant
1. Launch Command Prompt in the same way as in Method 1.
Then, type: cd C:Program Files (x86)AOMEI Partition Assistant (The path is your AOMEI Partition Assistant installation directory), and press
Then it will list all the partitions on your disk.
3. Type:partassist.exe /del:G and press ENTER. The progress will be executed. You can refer to the screenshot below:
Or you can use other commands like “Partassist.exe /del:n” to delete a specified partition. If you want to delete all the partitions on a disk, you can type “Partassist.exe /hd:0 /del:all” at the prompt.
Diskpart delete recovery partition
Video – how to delete recovery partition on Windows pc
Also read: diskpart clean to remove partition and data
Как удалить раздел с помощью PowerShell
PowerShell предлагает альтернативный способ удаления раздела из командной строки. Однако этот метод не работает в командной строке. Вот как это происходит:
Запустите PowerShell от имени администратора или откройте его в терминале Windows, если хотите. Затем запустите эту команду:
Затем PowerShell покажет таблицу со всеми разделами, найденными на вашем компьютере с Windows.
Получить список разделов с помощью PowerShell
Чтобы удалить раздел, выполните команду:
Remove-Partition -DriveLetter #
Замените символ # в команде фактической буквой диска раздела, который вы хотите удалить. Например, я хотел удалить резервный раздел на своем компьютере, и его буква была F, поэтому я выполнил команду:
Remove-Partition -DriveLetter F
Затем PowerShell попросит вас подтвердить, что вы хотите удалить указанный раздел. Введите Y и нажмите Enter, чтобы выполнить действие.
Через секунду раздел исчез с вашего диска.
How to open DiskPart in Windows 10/11?
To perform an operation on a partition, you just need to right-click on it. The operations supported by AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard are as below:
The operations of disk management and step-by-step wizards are as below:
You can download this freeware and have a try. To get more advanced features, such as converting dynamic disk into basic without losing data, recovering lost partition, you can upgrade AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard to Professional version.
Diskpart Delete Partition (Force, Override, delete system partition etc)
Diskpart delete disk can be done in cmd by clean all, what’s more, diskpart can delete partition (recovery/system) too. Here are more about information related with diskpart delete volume command.
: Diskpart delete partition/disk will remove all files on the disk, please backup files if necessary.
Before we move to the key part of this article, we would like to let you that delete disk or partition can be done under disk management easily.
If a partition cannot be deleted in disk management, try diskpart to delete partition or disk.
Conclusion
In this post, you’ve learnt to use Diskpart to delete partitions as long as another 2 alternatives – Disk Management and AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. By comparison, the AOMEI product is the best among them as it’s much more easy-to-use and has fewer limits if you want to delete any partitions. If you want to use this software on Servers, you can try the Server edition.