There are some hidden or System protected Disk partitions in almost all versions of Windows. Now on devices running any version of Microsoft’s latest operating system from Windows 10 Build 1803 to Windows 10 20H2 Build 19042 when someone tries to delete the smaller system partition from their PC this simply doesn’t work in the built-in Disk Partition tool. Even using the “DELETE PARTITION” command in DiskPart doesn’t work. You may see this text popping up as shown in the following command.
Virtual Disk Service error:
Cannot delete a protected partition without the force protected parameter set.
You can see the above delete partition diskpart notification in real command prompt in this screenshot below:
Now the issue here is how to fix this issue because the other working command “DELETE VOLUME” may crash the command prompt once it is executed. The DiskPart may simply crash on its own. This can result in the freezing of your command prompt also. To fix this you have to follow this step-by-step guide given below.
Table of Contents
How to FIX DiskPart Cannot Delete a Protected Partition:
When the DiskPart doesn’t work you can change the command line using the Delete Override in your command prompt.
1. Open Command Prompt.
2. Make sure to right-click and select Open “Run As Administrator“.
3. Once done go and write this command “DELETE PARTITION OVERRIDE“.
4. This new Override flag enables to deletion of any disk partition. Even if it’s the system-protected partition.
Final Words:
The older DISKPART will only let you delete or get rid of known Data partitions on your system. But if you have any Active Paging File available on any of the System, Boot, or any other Partition, the command prompt will crash again. So make sure that you don’t have any active paging files on the particular partition which you want to remove.