Would you like to convert a primary partition to logical partition on your computer?
Reasons:
In MBR disk, a hard disk can only contain 4 primary partitions at most or 3 primary partitions plus 1 extended partition. You may want to convert a primary partition to logical partition if you want to create fifth partition on the same hard disk when there are 4 primary partitions on it.
Generally speaking, you are able to convert a primary partition to logical partition on Windows computer with following methods:
Method1: Convert primary partition to logical partition using Disk Management
Method2: Change primary partition to logical drive with partition software
No matter which method you use, you should pay following points:
1. It is not available to convert a system partition to logical partition. Your compute will become unbootable after converting a system partition to logical partition.
2. You need to backup data if you use Disk Management to convert a primary partition to logical partition.
Disk Management utility on every version of Windows operating system is able to convert a primary partition to logical drive, but it would erase all data on the converted partition. Therefore, you need to backup all data to another media or drive before converting a primary partition to logical drive. Then, you can follow the guide below after backing up data:
Step1. Open Disk Management on Windows computer.
Step2. Right click the primary partition and select Delete Volume to delete the selected partition.
Step3. The deleted primary partition will show as unallocated space. Now, you can right click the unallocated space and click New Simple Volume option.
Step4. Select Logical Drive and then follow the wizard to format the partition to change it to logical partition.
Another way to convert primary partition to logical drive is to run Diskpart.
Step1. Open Command Line on your computer and enter diskpart and pres Enter button
Step2. Type list disk > select disk number (e.g. select disk 0)
Step3. Type create partition extended > create partition logical
Tip: Diskpart cannot convert primary partition to logical on Windows XP, but it only works on Windows 7 / 8 / 10.
Sometimes, when you run Disk Management to delete a primary partition and create a new logical drive, you may find that it is not able to accomplish the task because the Logical drive option is grayed out. In this situation, you can use a partition tool to change primary partition to logical drive.
IM-Magic Partition Resizer is partition software for all Windows users, so you can use it to convert a primary partition to logical partition on your computer. This partition software is able to change primary partition to logical without touching any original data.
Step1. Right click the primary partition and select "Convert to Logical Partition" option.
Step2. Confirm to convert the selected partition and then click "Apply Changes" button.
Microsoft still provides support for Windows 7 / 8 / 10 so far, so lots of Windows users would like to install Windows 7, 8 or 10 OS on their computer. The above methods are available for Windows 7, 8 and 10 users to convert primary partition to logical without having any influence on the operating system.
It is highly recommended to make a backup before converting a primary partition to logical in case of data loss, especially when you want to run Disk Management to create a logical drive on your computer.
For Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP/2000 ==> Download IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free
For Windows Server All versions ==> Download IM-Magic Partition Resizer Server