Diskpart

In computing, diskpart is a command-line hard disk partitioning utility included in versions of the Windows NT operating system line from Windows 2000 onwards, replacing fdisk which was used in MS-DOS based operating systems.^[1]

This utility prevents creating multipartition layout for removable media such as flash drives. It is also used for partitioning internal hard drives.

How it works

The diskpart command supports the use of scripts to automate its usage. For example, the following text file could be supplied to diskpart to create a new partition:

create partition logical size=2048
assign letter=F

This will create a 2 GB logical partition at the beginning of the free space on the disk and assign it the drive letter F:, provided that space requirements are met.^[2]

The installed disks and their associated volumes can be viewed by these commands:

list disk
list volume

Recovery Console

On the Recovery Console, which is included in all Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, there is a diskpart command which is significantly different from the one included in the actual operating system. It only provides functionality for adding and deleting partitions, but not for setting an active partition.^[3] The utility is also provided in the Windows Recovery Environment, the successor of the original Recovery Console.

See also

• Logical Disk Manager
• Disk Utility
• parted, cfdisk
• List of disk partitioning software
• Windows Imaging Format
• DiskPart: vdisk create select attach, install and boot Windows 7 from virtual disk device ^[4]
• Loop devices

References

External links

• Microsoft TechNet DiskPart article, ,
• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465%28v=ws.10%29.aspx