How To Partition An External Hard Drive

If you want to expand your storage options, learning how to partition your external hard drive may be the solution for you.  The steps for partitioning an external hard drive are the same as partitioning an internal hard drive.  The only cause for concern is making sure that you do not accidentally disconnect your external hard drive during the partitioning process.

What you’ll need:

• External hard drive
• Administrator permissions
• Disk management software (optional)

1. Readying the hard drive for partitioning.  Ideal conditions involve a clean external hard drive with no data present.  Some programs allow you to partition empty drive space, leaving other data on the drive untouched.
2. Creating the partition in Windows.  Click on your Start button, then select Control Panel, System and Maintenance, Administrative Tools and double click Computer Management.  Under Storage, click Disk Management.  Right-click on an empty area of your hard drive and select New Simple Volume.  When the wizard appears, click Next.  Then enter the size of the volume you want and click Next.  Choose a drive letter or accept the default assigned and click Next.  When the Format Partition box appears, if you want to format the new volume, click Next.  If not, select “Do Not Format This Volume” and click Next, the click Finish.
3. Creating the partition in OSX.  Launch the Disk Utility and in the left hand column, select the external hard drive you want to partition.  Click the partition tab and at the Volume Scheme drop down menu, select how many partitions you want.  Select each of the partitions, name it and then select a format.  If you want a partition that serves as a boot volume, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled).  If you only want a data storage volume, select Mac OS Extended.  When done, click the Apply button.