ACBobby Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 I would like to Partition my current C drive, running XP Pro, without losing any data. I want to take about, eh, 15g or so and devote it to another drive in order to install Windows 7 Beta. I also want to be able to install it without any booting problems when the Beta is over, should I remove the old operating system and want to join the partitions together again. Any information would be useful! --Bobby Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bakb0ne Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 Load up Gparted and resize your current partition to have 15GB of free space, or whatever you like, format the free space to NTFS, and install Windows 7. The W7 boot loader should pick up XP, if not, check this out: http://www.ditii.com/2009/01/28/how-to-mod...-7-boot-loader/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H@L0_F00 Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 Why not just run it in a VM? That would save your problems. But to resize a partition in Windows you can use Partition Magic or Partition Expert. The trials should satisfy your needs. Also make sure you defragment your drive well before trying to edit any partitions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomethingToChatWith Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 During Windows 7's installation you should be able to "Shrink" XP's partition by clicking the additional/advanced options link when you get to the partition screen and create a new one from the free space in order to install Windows 7. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 You can use a Windows PE boot disk/usb stick to run a Microsoft tool called diskpart which allows you to shrink your partitions: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/09/26/u...00-2003-and-xp/ As for Windows 7, it requires 2 partitions to install, a 200MB hidden one at the start of the disk and the normal one. There have been issues with Windows 7 sharing drives with other systems because of this, and I couldn't recommend that you attempt to dual boot the beta on a production/main system without backing things up first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomethingToChatWith Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 Windows 7 doesn't require two partitions if you've created a partition and selected it for installation. Otherwise, it does so so that the user can use bitlocker drive encryption later without having to meet any requirements prior to setup. Diskpart can be used as well for shrinking the partition if you'd prefer this method, but you can easily accomplish the task using the gui tools during Windows 7 installation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tymac94 Posted February 21, 2009 Share Posted February 21, 2009 I find Arconics Disk Director Suite to be good at stuff like this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted February 21, 2009 Share Posted February 21, 2009 Windows 7 doesn't require two partitions if you've created a partition and selected it for installation. Otherwise, it does so so that the user can use bitlocker drive encryption later without having to meet any requirements prior to setup. Diskpart can be used as well for shrinking the partition if you'd prefer this method, but you can easily accomplish the task using the gui tools during Windows 7 installation. It may not require this, but on several occasions I have had the installer crap out on me for this reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomethingToChatWith Posted February 21, 2009 Share Posted February 21, 2009 I havent had it crap out on me, but I guess thats because I did all my partitioning in Vista prior to installing W7. If you think its gonna crash on you than stick to diskpart, but if you want to use diskpart there's also no need to burn a seperate disc in order to use it. If you go to "Repair my computer" and get a command prompt from the recovery options menu, you can also use it from your Windows 7 DVD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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