One way to have a separate drive is to create a partition. For that, you would need a partition creating program. But there is another way to create a separate hard drive. You can create a virtual hard drive in Windows 7. This is one of the new features added to Windows 7. The Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format is an image format specification that creates a virtual hard disk incorporated in a single file. It is capable of hosting different native file systems and also providing support for standard disk and file operations.
Here are the steps necessary to create that virtual hard disk.
Dskmgmt.msc
[2] Go to Administrative Tools
In Administrative Tools - Disk Management
[3] Now Create VHD
Start the Create VHD operation
[4] Create And Attach Virtual Hard Disk
[5] Create a New Folder
Set Up A New Folder
[6] Location of virtual hard drive
Location Of Virtual Hard Drive
[7] The New Virtual Hard Drive is Created
New Virtual Hard Drive
[8] Now you must attach VHD
Attach VHD
[9] Locate and Attach the hard drive
Locate and Attach
[10] VHD – Unallocated Drive. The Drive is created but not allocated.
VHD-Unallocated
[11] Initialize the Disk
To Make the Disk Available Initialize the Disk
[12] Initialize the Disk so the Local Disk Manager can access it.
Initialize Disk With Details
[13]
Start The Volume Wizard
[14] Set the Volume Size
Set the Volume Size
[15] Set the Drive Letter
Drive Letter
[16] Format Partition
Format Partition
[17] The Format is Complete
Complete
[18] The New Volume Displayed
The New Volume
The Virtual Hard Drive is now available to be used. It can be accessed as the other drives on the system.
