How to break a flash drive into sections: step by step instructions and practical tips

A USB hard drive or memory card, like removable storage, is the most common device in people's daily lives. They are widely used to save important data and files, for example, system backups. One of their most significant benefits is mobility. Before breaking a USB flash drive into sections, you need to use special programs, after which people can easily and losslessly exchange files between computers and other devices.

The correct breakdown of the USB drive

Sometimes users need to sectorize a Kingston or Sandisk USB drive, for example, create an additional area or format separate partitions. The device’s file system shows RAW, which means that the partition on the flash drive is damaged or lost, so you first need to create a new one and then format the damaged one. The question of how to separate a USB drive is simple, you can complete this task using both Diskpart and the free AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard manager or other similar programs.

First, before breaking the USB flash drive into partitions, you need to connect the USB-drive to the PC, and make sure that it is detected by Windows. Since USB connects to computers with different operating systems, sometimes the drive is not detected. In addition, USB may become unavailable due to the RAW file system, and Windows will ask you to pre-format it. In this situation, the user should consider modifying the file system of the external drive.

Section formatting

Sometimes you need to change the system when areas are already created. Formatting leads to data loss, so the user needs to transfer important files to a safe place in advance in order to avoid data loss. You can partition the flash drive into Windows 7, but if the Windows Was notable the Format error appears, it is better to use the MiniTool wizard.

Process algorithm:

1. Select the USB area and “Format Partition” on the action bar.
2. Expand the file system list and select the one you need before clicking OK.
3. When the main interface appears again, click “Apply” on the toolbar.
4. Sometimes you need to convert the FAT / FAT32 partition to NTFS, to save individual files larger than 4 GB. In this case, Windows reports that "the file is too large for the target file system."
5. The MiniTool Partition Wizard helps you perform the conversion without losing data.
6. You need to select the FAT / FAT32 section on the USB drive and “Convert FAT to NTFS” from the action bar, and then click the “Start” button in the pop-up window.
7. In addition, sometimes you need to use a PS3 / PS4 drive to play games in which NTFS is not supported. In this case, you must convert the NTFS partition to FAT32.

Similarly, the MiniTool Partition Wizard offers a way to convert NTFS back to FAT32 without data loss.

MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Manager

MiniTool Partition is one of the best disk partition programs that is not only easy to use, but also has many features. It can create, resize, merge, split, delete, format USB, copy partition, erase and much more. It has a clear interface and a convenient wizard that will help the user to easily complete the task. Before breaking a flash drive into two sections:

1. Launch the MiniTool wizard to open the main interface.
2. In the disk map area, select unallocated space on the drive and “Create Partition” on the action panel.
3. In a new window, configure the label, type, drive letter, file system, cluster.
4. Adjust the size of the partition by moving the slider or entering a number before clicking the "OK" button.
5. Click “Apply” to save this change.

Windows Utility Management

You can share USB using the built-in Windows utilities. Before breaking a flash drive, in the "Disk Management" tab you need to run diskmgmt.msc to get the main utility window. You can also click on the PC, select "Disk Management" to access this interface.

Section Algorithm:

1. Click on the unallocated space of the drive.
2. Select "New simple volume" in the context menu.
3. Follow the instructions in the wizard to complete the process by independently determining the volume size, drive letter, file system, allocation units, and volume label.
4. In the CMD, enter the commands: Diskpart, List disk.
5. Confirm each of them with Enter.
6. Select drive n (replace n with the exact drive number of the USB drive).
7. Create the primary partition size = n (note that n represents the size of the volume and the unit is MB).
8. Quick format.
9. Exit (exit diskpart).
10. Output (CMD output).

Create multiple drive areas

Since Windows 10 Version 1703 supports several partitions on removable drives, it is possible to create them on a USB drive. MiniTool Partition Wizard Free also offers a similar partition function. Moreover, this flexible manager offers more solutions.

Detailed steps are shown below:

1. Split the flash drive into 2 partitions, works for FAT and NTFS.
2. Select the USB drive partition and “Separate” in the action bar.
3. In the Split Partition window, you can see that the MiniTool Partition Wizard automatically divides the section into two parts and determines their size.
4. You can move the slider left / right to set the size yourself.
5. After that, click the "OK" button.
6. Click “Apply” on the toolbar and confirm the operation.
7. Repeat the above steps before breaking the flash drive into several sections.
8. Resizing and creating - works for FAT and NTFS partitions.

Diskpart Disk Assistant

Diskpart opens slightly different for different OS. For Windows 10, the opening is carried out by pressing the Windows and R keys (simultaneously), then enter diskpart into the line in the pop-up window and press “Enter”. For Windows 7 and XP, opening is done by pressing Windows, then select “Command Prompt” and “Run as administrator”. For Windows 8 - Windows + X (at the same time) and select "Command Prompt" (Admin). Before breaking the flash drive into sections, you need to run the command line, for which press Enter after each transition.

Further operations with disks:

1. Enter the “list of drives”.
2. Then determine which is the USB key.
3. Enter select disk * (* indicates the USB key) -> enter clean -> list part. Next, "create a primary section" -> list part, and then enter select part 1 -> active -> enter format fs = fat32 label = 'Tabernus'.
4. The process may take some time.

All steps in Diskpart are irreversible. It was discovered that USB keys have different partition table settings, with some USB software will not work. You can use Windows Diskpart to reformat the USB key and re-partition it:

1. Open command window (cmd).
2. Enter diskpart.
3. Enter the selected drive x, where x is the USB key.
4. Enter the format fs = fat32 label = Tabernus (the label is optional - the USB key is indicated as Tabernus in Explorer, etc.)
5. The process may take some time, but USB now works to erase USB Tabernus.

AOMEI Partition Assistant Manager

Powerful helper in case the USB partition is damaged. Supports multiple areas on removable media, such as USB, in order to divide it into several parts.

Procedure:

1. Format a drive that does not work on the command line.
2. Make bootable USB.
3. Break the usb flash drive into sections. This free tool allows you to split into NTFS or FAT32 in Windows 10/8/7 / XP.
4. Download the free version of AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard.
5. After completion, you need to restart the USB drive.

It is important to know that Windows recognizes only the first primary partition on a removable device. Therefore, after this operation, the second partition will not have a drive letter and is displayed in Windows Explorer. You can save two partitions on other operating systems, such as Linux.

Partitioning a USB Hard Drive with AOMEI Assistant:

1. Install and run the AOMEI Partition Assistant.
2. Right-click on USB, select "Create Partition".
3. You can click on the drive and select "Create Partition" in the left pane.
4. Specify the size and drive letter for the new partition.
5. Click "Apply."

Creators Update for Windows 10

Split the flash drive into sections, the program Creators Update is not difficult. The only condition is that the USB drive must be pre-formatted in NTFS. Before starting work, you must back up all data from the USB drive to another location to avoid loss.

Break the USB flash drive into Windows 10 partitions:

1. Connect the drive to a PC with Windows 10 Creators Update (v1703) or higher.
2. Open PC.
3. Click on the USB that you want to split, and on the "Properties".
4. Check if the drive is formatted in NTFS.
5. If it is formatted in FAT or FAT 32, click “Format”. In the "File System" drop-down list, select "NTFS", "Start" and "OK."
6. Click the "Start" button on the taskbar. In the "Disk Management" window, click USB and select "Reduce Volume".
7. This action will open the Shrink dialog.
8. If the flash drive is formatted in FAT, the parameter is not displayed.
9. In the "Enter the amount of space to reduce in MB" field, enter the size in MB. For example, on a 16 GB disk, if you need to create two 8 GB partitions, then compress the disk by about 7000 MB.

EaseUS Partition Wizard

A third-party application is required to optimize the performance of the USB hard drive. EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition is a free partition management program. Thanks to precise partitioning, you can manage the resizing, copying, merging, creating, deleting, and expanding the NTFS system partition without rebooting and copying the dynamic disk.

It works great with all Windows OSs, easily splits a USB drive using very simple operations, and the data is completely protected during the partitioning process of a USB hard drive. In addition to the section, this unique free manager has a Partition Recovery Wizard for recovering deleted or lost areas. USB Drive Partition:

1. Run the EaseUS partition software, select the unallocated area on the flash drive, right-click and “Create Partition”.
2. When the “Create Partition” window pops up, you can enter a label, select a drive letter, cluster and partition size, type (primary / logical) and file system in the drop-down menu.
3. When creating, you can resize the partition to the desired value.
4. Click “OK” to confirm all operations. After that, a new partition will be successfully created on the drive.

GParted Partition Manager

GParted v0.23.0. It works completely from a boot disk or USB, it has a full user interface, like a regular program. Editing a partition size is easy because you can choose the exact amount of free space before and after the partition. It uses either a text box or a sliding panel to visually see an increase or decrease in size. A partition can be formatted in any of several file system formats, some of which include EXT2 / 3/4, NTFS, FAT16 / 32, and XFS.

Changes made by GParted to disks are queued and then applied with one click. Since it extends beyond the operating system, pending changes do not require a reboot, which means that other operations can be performed in parallel.

A slight inconvenience of the program is that it does not simultaneously list all available partitions on one screen, like most other disk partitioning programs. The user must open each disk separately in the drop-down menu. GParted is about 300 MB, which is much larger than most other free programs, so downloading may take some time.

PC drive detection

Even with the growth of cloud storage, a USB flash drive is still vital, especially when DVD discs quietly leave the consumer market. Flash drives have a higher capacity than drives, copy data faster, such as installation files, and also have much faster access. In short, installing software the size of Windows 10 with USB is much faster than with DVD.

However, sometimes it happens that when manipulating a disk it does not appear in Windows Explorer and the question arises as to whether the USB flash drive can be partitioned. In the case when the USB device section is not displayed in the “File Explorer”, you need to connect the USB cable to the system and open the “Disk Management”, where two sections will be placed under the same USB. Most likely, the second section will be RAW.

You need to right-click it and select "Format" in the context menu. Make sure the file system is NTFS. Once a partition is formatted, it will no longer appear as RAW space. To complete the process, you will need to click, select Change Drive Letter and Path in the context menu and designate the drive with a letter.

As USB drives become larger and larger, it is useful for users to know how to break them down into separate sectors. This will simplify the organization of files, allow you to boot from one partition and save the necessary tools on another. To create a partitioned disk, you will need proven programs and utilities.