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How to Create Partitions on Thumb Drive

Anonymous
2024-09-25T22:01:06+00:00

In the attached screenshot, you can see a Disk Management window showing a thumb drive (Z:). It has no partitions defined and no unallocated space. I want to create 2 partitions: one will hold the os and related files and the other witll hold everything else. I'm preparing for data encryption and practicing on a thumb drive before I commit to any changes on my SSD or HDD.

I've done some searching and reading but none of the solutions I found fit my situation. For example, when I right click on the Thumb Z (Z:) area in the dm window, I get a drop down menu but it does not include the New Simple Volume option. I suspect it's because I don't have any unallocated space to right-click in. The drop down menu that does appear has the shrink volume option but it is greyed out and unavailable. I'd post a screen shot but I haven't been successful at capturing one using Snipping Tool.

Questions:

  1. How can I create the 2 partitions I want on the thumb drive while controlling how much space is allocated to each?
  2. How do I get Snipping Tool to capture a drop down menu? FWIW, I launched Snipping Tool, clicked Escape, clicked CTL/PrtScn, then right-clicked in Disk Mgmt and displayed the menu; but I then did not have the Snipping Tool box displayed.
Windows for home | Windows 11 | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. Rodrigo Queiroz 77,265 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2024-09-25T22:58:12+00:00

    Hi,

    I'm Rodrigo and I'll help you.

    The THUMB Z drive has 1 partition and it is the using the whole drive.

    You have two options: Shrink the existing partition and create a new partition on the unallocated space or delete the current partitions and create two new partitions.

    Since you said the shrink option is greyed out, delete the current partition and create two new partitions.

    Backup your data, this procedure will delete the files on the drive.

    Right-click the blue bar on the disk > Delete volume... > Yes.

    Now the whole drive space will be unallocated.

    Right-click the black bar on the disk > New simple volume... > Set the partition size > Drive letter > Label and file system > Finish.

    Do the same procedure on the rest of the unallocated space (black bar) to create another partition.

    To capture the drop-down menus on Snipping Tool, use the shortcut Windows + Shift + S.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-09-25T22:55:20+00:00

    Bad form, I know, to reply to your own post; but I discovered how to fix the partitioning problem.

    I first removed the volume label (Z:) which made the entire thumb drive unallocated. Right-clicking in this space in disk mgmt gave me the drop down menu with create New Simple Volume as an option. I used it to create a partition in which I will put my os then created another partition in which I will put my data. I gave each a volume label.

    I'm posting the solution in case someone else happens by here while searching for this solution.

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