Windows 7: Primary Partions

Hello everyone,



I hope I am posting in the right area. I am trying to turn my friends gateway laptop into a dual boot. But... I am running into a small problem that I can not find an accurate fix for. This system is windows 7 has 3 primary partitions and I need to remove one or something to install XP. I have searched the web for 2 weeks now looking for a fix that would work. Any insight that you might have for me would be great.

If your version of Windows 7 supports it, I suggest the Windows 7 XP Mode. It's free and would be the safest thing to install. No need to mess with partitions.

Windows 7 can shrink an existing partition so you can use the space to create a new one for the purposes of installing another operating system, such as XP or Linux. It's likely those three partitions are the 100 MB partition Windows 7 uses for booting - leave that alone. Then the biggest is the your main C: drive - that is safe to shrink with the Disk Management tool. The third is likely a recovery partition that Gateway installed to allow you to restore the laptop to the factory configuration - leave that alone too.

Bye.

Thank you for your reply. My friend is old and set in his ways and does not want to learn 7. I am trying to do this without formatting the hd. His version of Win 7 does not allow xp mode either.

What is the size of the HD & how much free space is available on C: drive ?

Hi Computergeek78 !! Welcome to SF

You may follow the method 2 (Windows 7 installed first) of the tutorial Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP .

How to create a new partition for xp is also stated here .

i have 13 gig recovery <--- I want to remove 100mb system reserve 226gig c <---win 7 and 225 gig for xp if i can ever turn it into a primary

Thanks for the post ARC. I have tried that. But with the system already having 3 Primary partitions It is refusing to install.

I think the 100mb partition has some back up boot files on it, so probably best not to remove it. You could probably use the Free program Partition Wizard to shrink the Windows 7 C: drive. 80gb for the XP partition should be enough space for it.


Download Partition Wizard

thanks Doc downloading it now will let you know results when I am finished running it