How to Unpartition a Hard Drive on Windows and Mac

Theo Lucia

Jun 03, 2026 • Filed to: Recover Files • Proven solutions

Is there a way to unpartition a hard drive? -from Reddit

If you work with or on computers, you might face the problem—at least once in your lifetime—about removing the partition of your hard drive. When you buy a computer, the salesman partitions the hard drive for you. But when you are planning on recycling, reformatting, or selling the computer, you would not know how to unpartition a hard drive.

Another reason you might need to unpartition your hard drive is to booth the OS. When you have an unnecessary partition(s) in your hard drive and your computer signals about free space running out, it might be the best option for you to unpartition your hard drive.

It may seem like a task for a tech-savvy guy, but the truth is that removing the partition of a hard drive is something that can be done successfully by an average computer user.

So, if you are looking for ways to remove the partition of your hard drive, this article contains just the solutions for you that would work on both Windows and macOS.

How to Unpartition a Hard Drive on Windows 11/10

Windows allow its users to easily delete partitions by themselves. Below are some methods discussing how to unpartition hard drive on Windows 10.

Unpartition a Hard Drive via Disk Management

To unpartition the hard drive on Windows 11/10 using the disk management method, follow the steps below.

1. Open the Start Menu on Windows and type Disk Management in the search bar. The control panel section will pop in the results, open it.
2. In the Disk Management panel, right-click the drive or the partition you want to delete and select Delete Volume from the drop-down menu.
3. Select Yes to continue with the partition removal process. When the process is done, you would have successfully unpartitioned the respective hard drive.

Crucial Step: Merging the Unallocated Space

Deleting a partition is only half the battle. Once you click "Delete Volume," that space becomes Unallocated Space. To truly "unpartition" and regain that storage, you must merge it into an existing partition. In Disk Management, right-click the healthy partition located immediately to the left of the new black "Unallocated" block and select Extend Volume. Follow the wizard to absorb the space. If the "Extend Volume" option is greyed out, it means there is a recovery partition or other data blocking the two spaces from merging.

Unpartition a Hard Drive via Diskpart

Another way to unpartition the hard drive on Windows is through Diskpart. Follow the steps below.

1. Press Windows + R to launch a Run box. Type cmd in the Run search box and press enter. That will open the Windows Command Prompt.
2. In the Command Prompt, type the following commands (each command on each step) which would lead you to the ending step of finally deleting the partition:
   
   diskpart
   list disk
   selected disk #
   list partition
   select partition #
   delete partition #
3. Once the partition is deleted, type exit to close the Command Prompt.

How to Unpartition a Hard Drive on Mac

Just like Windows, Apple Support allows the user to delete physical disk’s partitions on Mac operating system. Follow the steps below to do that.

1. Open the Disk Utility application on Mac, select a partition volume in the sidebar and click the Erase button in the toolbar.

2. In the Apple File System Space Sharing dialog box, click on Partition.

3. The pie chart would be visible showing all the partitions, click the one you want to delete, then click the Delete button, or a minus button. If the Delete button is inoperable, it means that you cannot delete the selected partition.

3. Click Apply.

More Related: How To Partition a Hard Drive With/Without Formatting

Bonus Tip: How to Recover Data from Lost Partition Using Wondershare Recoverit

Imagine you try to delete or create a hard disk partition and your data is lost. Doesn’t matter how much professional or tech-savvy you are, the data in hard disks are much likely to be compromised during such procedures. But—don’t worry. If your data is lost in any case, there is a way to recover that. And that way is Wondershare Recoverit .

Wondershare Recoverit is the recovery software application that helps you recover your data from different places, wherever the data is lost. In this case, we will use Wondershare Recoverit to recover data from the lost partition of the hard disk. Follow the steps below.

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Step 1: Download and Launch Wondershare Recoverit

Download Wondershare Recoverit using a browser and launch it on your desktop. Hard disk with the recently lost partition should be installed on the computer.

Step 2:  Select a Partition

Select the partition where your data was lost and click the Start button to run the scanning process.

Step 3: Scan the Partition

Wondershare Recoverit will start the scanning process when you click the Start button. It will take a while to display all the recoverable files from the lost partition. When the scan is finished, you will be allowed to preview your data and recover it by clicking it Recover.

Conclusion

If you were struggling to learn how to unpartition a hard disk, we hope this article helped you find the best possible solutions for both Windows 10 and Mac OS.

Moreover, it is important to remember that before you remove any partition, you should back up your data because unpartitioning of a hard disk can straight up result in loss of all data. Good luck.