Diskpart Command

The diskpart Command Prompt command is used to create or delete partitions on hard drives.

Diskpart Command Availability

The diskpart command is available from within the Command Prompt in Windows operating systems, including Windows 11, 10, 8, etc.

You can also access this command from the Recovery Console in Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Diskpart Command Syntax

diskpart <parameter>

Diskpart Command Parameters
Item	Description
active	Marks the disk's partition with focus, as active.
add	Creates a new partition on the specified hard drive.
assign	Assigns a drive letter or mount point to the volume with focus.
attach vdisk	Attaches (sometimes called mounts or surfaces) a virtual hard disk (VHD) so that it appears on the host computer as a local hard disk drive.
attributes	Displays, sets, or clears the attributes of a disk or volume.
automount	Enables or disables the automount feature.
break	Breaks the mirrored volume with focus into two simple volumes.
clean	Removes any and all partition or volume formatting from the disk with focus.
compact vdisk	Reduces the physical size of a dynamically expanding virtual hard disk (VHD) file.
convert	Converts file allocation table (FAT) and FAT32 volumes to the NTFS file system, leaving existing files and directories intact.
create	Creates a partition on a disk, a volume on one or more disks, or a virtual hard disk (VHD).
delete	Removes a specified partition on a specified hard drive.
detach vdisk	Stops the selected virtual hard disk (VHD) from appearing as a local hard disk drive on the host computer.
detail	Displays information about the selected disk, partition, volume, or virtual hard disk (VHD).
exit	Exits the diskpart command interpreter.
expand vdisk	Expands a virtual hard disk (VHD) to the size that you specify.
extend	Extends the volume or partition with focus, along with its file system, into free (unallocated) space on a disk.
filesystems	Displays information about the current file system of the volume with focus and lists the file systems that are supported for formatting the volume.
format	Formats a disk to accept Windows files.
gpt	Assigns the gpt attribute(s) to the partition with focus on basic GUID partition table (gpt) disks.
help	Displays a list of the available commands or detailed help information on a specified command.
import	Imports a foreign disk group into the disk group of the local computer.
inactive	Marks the system partition or boot partition with focus as inactive on basic master boot record (MBR) disks.
list	Displays a list of disks, of partitions in a disk, of volumes in a disk, or of virtual hard disks (VHDs).
merge vdisk	Merges a differencing virtual hard disk (VHD) with its corresponding parent VHD.
offline	Takes an online disk or volume to the offline state.
online	Takes an offline disk or volume to the online state.
recover	Refreshes the state of all disks in a disk group, attempt to recover disks in an invalid disk group, and resynchronizes mirrored volumes and RAID-5 volumes that have stale data.
rem	Provides a way to add comments to a script.
remove	Removes a drive letter or mount point from a volume.
repair	Repairs the RAID-5 volume with focus by replacing the failed disk region with the specified dynamic disk.
rescan	Locates new disks that may have been added to the computer.
retain	Prepares an existing dynamic simple volume to be used as a boot or system volume.
san	Displays or sets the storage area network (san) policy for the operating system.
select	Shifts the focus to a disk, partition, volume, or virtual hard disk (VHD).
set id	Changes the partition type field for the partition with focus.
shrink	Reduces the size of the selected volume by the amount you specify.
uniqueid	Displays or sets the GUID partition table (GPT) identifier or master boot record (MBR) signature for the disk with focus.

Diskpart Command Examples

Here are some examples showing how the diskpart command can be used:

Create 5 GB Partition

diskpart /add \Device\HardDisk0 5000

In the above example, the diskpart command creates a 5,000 MB partition on the hard drive located at \Device\HardDisk0.

Delete Partition by Name

diskpart /delete \Device\HardDisk0\Partition1

For this one, the diskpart command will remove the Partition1 partition located on the hard drive \Device\HardDisk0.

Delete Partition by Letter

diskpart /delete G:

This command will remove the partition currently assigned the drive letter G.

Select a Disk

diskpart
list disk
select disk 1
attributes disk clear readonly
exit

Finally, in this multipart command, diskpart is being used to select a particular disk, disk 1 in this example, so we can remove the readonly attribute that's been set on it.

Related Commands

The fixboot, fixmbr, and bootcfg commands are often used with the diskpart command.