How to Access Hard Drive Partitions

By Launie Sorrels

Accessing hard-drive partitions is a very simple task. A hard-drive partition is a defined storage space on a hard drive. Most hard drives allows user to divide a hard drive into multiple partitions, essentially making a larger hard drive into several smaller hard drives. Just as accessing multiple drives in "My Computer" is easy to do, so is accessing the partitions of a hard drive. Each partition is allocated a drive letter the same way as individual hard drives are.

Double-click "My Computer." The "My Computer" window opens. Here you will be able to see the various hard drives and partitions you have access to.

Look in the "Hard Disk Drives" section of the window. The (C:) drive is your root drive. You may have a drive that is set for factory images. This will state something like, "FACTORY_IMAGE (D:)." Any other drives in this section will either be another hard drive or a partition. In the "Devices with Removable Storage" section you will see external hard drives, CD-ROMs, DVDs, or other removable disks.

Select the partitioned drive you want to access by double-clicking on the drive letter of the partition (i.e."New Volume (Z:)). A window for the drive that you clicked on will open, showing files and folders that are located on the drive. In "My Computer" you can access any and all drives at your leisure.

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