What Do The Hash Marks On A Partition In Disk Management Mean

If you are looking at your computer’s partitions in Disk Management for the first time, then you will definitely notice that one of them has been “marked” with hash marks. What does it mean? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a curious reader’s question.

Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.

The Question

SuperUser reader Thufir wants to know what the hash marks shown for a partition in Disk Management means:

What do the hash marks shown for a partition in Disk Management mean?

The Answer

SuperUser contributors Run5k and DavidPostill have the answer for us. First up, Run5k:

Followed by the answer from DavidPostill:

Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.

It indicates that the partition has been selected (also indicated, as shown below, by the blue rectangle in the top part of the dialog where a selection is made). Here is an example showing the default selection after opening Disk Management:

After selecting Expansion (F:):

You can see the diagonal lines (hash marks) have moved.

Image Credit: Thufir (SuperUser)