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How to Open Disk Management in Windows 10

Adding a new internal storage drive to a Windows PC isn’t as easy as plug-and-play. First, you’ll need to set it up to be recognized as a system drive that requires an additional tool in Windows called Disk Management. Many PC users aren’t exactly familiar with how they can access this tool even though it’s already built into Windows. Well, if you’re one of them, this shouldn’t be a problem from now on since we’ll be covering how to open disk management in Windows 10.

Part 1. About Windows 10 Disk Management

Before we start with how you can open Disk Management in Windows 10, it’s important to know more about this useful tool. Disk Management is a Control Panel utility in Windows 10 devices that allows users to perform advanced storage operations on their PCs. These include setting up a new storage drive, creating or formatting a disk partition, extending or shrinking a drive volume, and more. All in all, whenever you want to troubleshoot problems with your storage or manage your disk drives, the Disk Management tool may prove to be extremely useful.

Part 2. How to Open Disk Management in Windows 10

Fortunately, Microsoft offers several different ways to open Disk Management in Windows 10. Therefore, if you’re unable to get one method to work due to certain issues on your computer, there’s always a different route you can take. Right below, we’ll be checking out 7 different ways to open disk management in Windows 10.

2.1. Open Disk Management in Windows 10 from the Quick Access Menu

Let’s start with the easiest method. You don’t even need to use your keyboard to access the Disk Management tool if you’re following these two simple steps. Here’s what you need to do:
Step 1. Right-click on the Windows logo or the Start icon typically located at the bottom-left corner of your screen, as shown below.

Open the Quick Access Menu in Windows 10

Step 2. This will bring up a context menu on your screen. Here, you’ll be able to find the Disk Management tool along with the rest of the items. Just click on ‘Disk Management.’

Open Disk Management in Windows 10 from the Quick Access Menu

Step 3. The Disk Management app will now open in a new window on your desktop. You’ll be able to view all your storage drives and disk partitions.

Disk Management on Windows 10

As you can tell, it’s really that simple to open Disk Management on Windows 10 using the Quick Access menu. Now, go ahead and manage your storage drives or do whatever requires you to use Disk Management in Windows 10.

2.2. Open Disk Management in Windows 10 from Control Panel

As we mentioned earlier, Disk Manager is a Control Panel utility in Windows. This means that you will be able to access Disk Management on Windows 10 from the Control Panel. This is what we’ll be taking a look at in this method. So, without further ado, let’s proceed:

Step 1. Use the search field located in the Windows taskbar to find and open ‘Control Panel’ on your computer.

Open Disk Management in Windows 10 from Control Panel

Step 2. Once Control Panel opens in a new window, you’ll need to head over to the ‘System and Security’ section to access the necessary utility.

Click System and Security on Windows 10 Control Panel

Step 3. Now, scroll down below in the right pane. Under Administrative Tools, you’ll find an option called ‘Create and format hard disk partitions.’ Just click on it.

Create and format hard disk partitions on Windows 10

Step 4. The Disk Management utility will now open in a new window on your computer, just like the first method.

Disk Management on Windows 10

There you go. You can now proceed with storage management, troubleshooting your disk drives, or anything else you need to do with the Disk Management utility.

2.3. Open Disk Management in Windows 10 from Computer Management

Computer Management is an app that’s included in all modern versions of Windows, which gives users access to a collection of administrative tools like Event Viewer, Task Scheduler, Device Manager, Disk Management, and more. In this method, you’ll be launching the Disk Management utility on Windows 10 within the Computer Management app itself. Here’s how:

Step 1. You can use the search field in your Windows taskbar to browse for and launch the ‘Computer Management’ app in Windows 10.

Open Disk Management in Windows 10 from Computer Management

Step 2. Once Computer Management opens on your desktop, you’ll see the console tree on the left pane. Here, select ‘Disk Management’ located below Storage as indicated in the screenshot below.

Click Disk management on Computer management

The Disk Management utility will show up on the right pane with all the details related to system storage.

2.4. Open Disk Management in Windows 10 via Searching

Many users may prefer this method due to its sheer simplicity since all you need to do is type in the search bar. There are two different ways to search for Disk Management and launch the utility in Windows 10. Let’s check them out:

Step 1. If you type ‘Disk Management’ in the Windows search bar, you’ll get a result that may seem familiar, assuming you’ve read the Control Panel method. ‘Create and format hard disk partitions’ is a Control Panel item, and clicking on it from the search results will open the Disk Management utility.

Search Create and format hard disk partitions on Windows 10

Step 2. Alternatively, you can type ‘diskmgmt.msc’ in the search field which will fetch you the result for a Microsoft Common Console Document as shown below. Click on it to launch Disk Management on your Windows 10 computer.

Search diskmgmt.msc to open disk management on Windows 10

These are two different keywords that you can search for, but no matter which one you go with, you’re pretty much doing the same thing.

2.5. Open Disk Management in Windows 10 from the Run Window

Next, we’ll be using the Run window to open the Disk Management in Windows 10. The Run command allows the user to launch a program quickly by name or open any file by typing its full path. Just follow these steps:

Step 1. You can open the Run dialog box using Windows search. Type ‘Run’ in the search bar and click on the result as shown below.

Open Disk Management in Windows 10 from the Run Window

Step 2. You can also skip the above step completely by pressing the ‘Windows + R’ keys on your keyboard, which will bring up the Run dialog box at the bottom-left corner of your screen. Now, just type ‘diskmgmt.msc’ in the Open field and hit the ‘Enter’ key or click on ‘OK.’

Type diskmgmt.msc on the Run window

That’s it. Windows will now open Disk Management on your screen, where you’ll be able to manage all your storage drives.

2.6. Open Disk Management in Windows 10 Using Command Prompt

You may already be familiar with Command Prompt on Windows and how it is used to execute commands and perform certain tasks on your computer. Similarly, you can use Command Prompt to open the Disk Management utility in Windows 10 too. So, let’s take a look at the procedure:

Step 1: First, you’ll need to open Command Prompt. You can type ‘CMD’ in the Windows search bar and click on Command Prompt from the results to get started.

Open Disk Management in Windows 10 Using Command Prompt

Step 2: Once the Command Prompt window opens, all you need to type is ‘diskmgmt’ and hit the Enter key on your keyboard to run the command.

Type diskmgmt.msc on the Command Prompt

Right away, Disk Management will launch in a new window. Although you don’t have to run Command Prompt as an administrator to open the Disk Management utility in Windows 10, you may sometimes be unable to perform certain tasks that require administrator actions. To avoid this, you can right-click on Command Prompt from the search results and choose ‘Run as administrator.’

2.7. Open Disk Management in Windows 10 Using PowerShell

The last method we’re about to discuss is pretty much identical to the Command Prompt technique, except for the fact that we’ll be typing the command line in PowerShell instead. This is because PowerShell is an advanced command-line interpreter developed by Microsoft that combines the functionality of CMD with a scripting instruction set. Here are the steps:

Step 1. Use the search field in your taskbar to find and open ‘Windows PowerShell’ from the results. You can also right-click on it to ‘Run as administrator’ if you’re looking to perform advanced tasks that require administrator permissions.

Open Disk Management in Windows 10 Using PowerShell

Step 2. Once opened, type ‘diskmgmt’ in the command line interpreter and press the Enter key on your keyboard to execute the command.

Type diskmgmt.msc on the Powershell

That’s all you need to do. You can proceed to use the tool to complete the rest of the tasks.

Part 3. Windows 10 Disk Management Alternative

If you find the built-in Disk Management utility to be a little complicated to work with, there’s a third-party software that you can try as an alternative. It’s called AOMEI Partition Assistant that you can download for free. The interface is a lot easier to understand for newcomers. It also improves upon Microsoft’s Disk Management utility by providing additional features like recovering data from partitions, converting NTFS to FAT32, and vice versa without data loss, migrate the operating system to a different drive, and more.

Bottomline

We’re glad that Microsoft provides its users with all these different ways to open and access the Disk Management tool in Windows 10. If you’re unable to get one of these methods to work due to Windows Explorer issues or any other reason, you can always try out a different technique. Of course, there are even more ways to open Disk Management in Windows 10. For example, you can create a desktop shortcut and set the location to diskmgmt.msc to quickly launch it from your desktop. Or, you can open Task Manager and run a new task called diskmgmt.msc to launch the utility.

Now that we’ve covered all these different methods, it’s up to you to try them out and decide which one you prefer. Do you know any additional ways to open the Disk Management utility in Windows 10? If so, please feel free to share your knowledge with us in the comments. Also, don’t forget to leave your valuable feedback, too.

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