How to Delete Volumes or Partitions That Disk Management Can’t Remove

If you consider yourself a Windows or general PC power user, then you will need to know how to manage your hard drives so you can do things such as install Windows or other operating systems, divide up your drive into multiple volume or partitions, format your drive, clone your drive, install a new drive and even delete volumes or partitions. And if you are the type who likes to build their own computer, it is essential to know how to perform these tasks.

When managing your disks in Windows using the Disk Management tool, you may find that you are unable to delete a volume or partition when right clicking on it because the delete volume option is greyed out or missing altogether. In this article, we will be showing you two ways to delete volumes or partitions that Disk Management can’t remove.

The image below shows Disk 0 with the Windows system drive (C:) and then Disk 1 is a clone\copy of that drive. The goal is to remove all the partitions on Disk 1 so it will be all unallocated space like the 20GB unallocated section at the end.

If we were to right click on the E drive, we would be able to delete the drive but when trying to do it for the EFI system partition or recovery partition, the Delete Volume option is either greyed out or missing altogether.

Method 1: Using NIUBI Partition Editor to Delete Volumes or Partitions That Disk Management Can’t Remove

The first method we will be using to delete partitions from a hard drive involves using a free app called NIUBI Partition Editor. So, if you are the type who likes to do things via a GUI (Graphical User Interface), then this might be the method for you.

NIUBI comes in two versions. You can install the software like a regular program, or you can download the standalone version and simply run the executable. If you plan on using the software on a regular basis, you may want to actually install it.

To delete a partition using NIUBI, simply right click on the partition in the app and choose Delete volume.

Once you have deleted the volume, you will need to click on the Apply button to have the changes take effect. If you change your mind, you can click the Undo button or just exit the program and not apply the changes. You can also delete multiple partitions and then just click the Apply button one time to apply all the changes at once.

You may run into a situation where you have a partition that NIUBI cannot delete so if that happens, you will need to use the command line process outlined in the next method.

Method 2: Using the Diskpart Command to Delete Volumes or Partitions That Disk Management Can’t Remove

If you are a command line type of person, then you may want to use the Windows Diskpart command to delete any volume or partitions that Disk Management cannot. The process is not too complicated, but you will need to have an administrator account on the computer to do so.

First you will need to open a command prompt, and preferably an administrative command prompt. Then you will need to type diskpart to get to a diskpart prompt.

Then you will need to type list disk to show the hard drives installed in your computer. This next step is very important because you will need to match the disk numbers shown here with what Disk Management says to make sure you select the correct disk.

Once you have the correct disk number you can type select disk X where X is the disk number you want to remove the partitions from.

Now you can type list partition to view the partitions on the disk you have selected. You will then see all the partitions configured on that drive.

Now you will need to choose which partition or partitions you want to delete for the next step. Once you have these partition numbers you will need to type select partition X where X is the number of the partition you want to remove.

Finally, you can type delete partition override to have that partition removed.

If you need to delete another partition, you will need to select it first by using the select partition command once again with the next partition number and then type delete partition override again to remove that one.

Now when we go back to Disk Management after deleting the partitions\volumes using either method, you can see that Disk 1 has all of the space available to be used (unallocated).

If you want to remove all the partitions from a drive in one step, then check out this video.

For additional training resources, check out our online IT training courses.