Solved Partitioning a "Primary Partition" Win7 Ultimate 64bit

[SinnerCoco]

Hey guys,

I'll be getting a copy of Windows 8 very shortly, (After becoming Accredited for Windows 8. Cheers, Microsoft), and I'd like to have a system partition.
I have Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit installed on my system at the moment, but my hard drive is not yet partitioned. My plan is to have a system partition so that when I use the "Custom Install" option when installing Win8, I can wipe Win7 out of it and do a clean install of Win8.
I want to make sure I get this right with nothing exploding, so I figured this would be the place to ask.

I checked in "Disk Management" and was going to follow a tutorial I found within the depths of SevenForums, but the tutorial says to partition "Unallocated" space, whereas I have "Primary Partition" for my entire hard disk space.

Any solutions for me?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Do you want to get completely rid of Windows 7?

I assume you do.

In that case, you would boot from the Windows 8 disk and delete all partitions during the Windows 8 installation process. That will get rid of Windows 7.

You will end up with a small System Reserved partition and a large primary C partition, containing Windows 8.

You don't need to worry about unallocated space, primary partitions, etc. Just delete all existing partitions.

If you want to have BOTH Win 7 and Win 8 on the same PC, that's another story.

After Win 8 is installed, you can then go back and make another partition for data or some other purpose if you like.

 

[BisVal]

I think the better decision is to make a system partition about 100 Gb first, and after installing the OS to divide the unallocated space as You like it.

 

[SinnerCoco]

Do you want to get completely rid of Windows 7?

I assume you do.

In that case, you would boot from the Windows 8 disk and delete all partitions during the Windows 8 installation process. That will get rid of Windows 7.

You will end up with a small System Reserved partition and a large primary C partition, containing Windows 8.

You don't need to worry about unallocated space, primary partitions, etc. Just delete all existing partitions.

If you want to have BOTH Win 7 and Win 8 on the same PC, that's another story.

After Win 8 is installed, you can then go back and make another partition for data or some other purpose if you like.

My concern was more around the sh*t tonne of personal folders and files. Will they not be destroyed upon deleting all partitions?
I guess another good question would be, Does it make a difference whether the system files are in its own partition as apposed to sitting in one big data pile with the rest of my stuff?

 

[SinnerCoco]

I think the better decision is to make a system partition about 100 Gb first, and after installing the OS to divide the unallocated space as You like it.

So on my "Primary Partition" will I be clicking "Shrink" and then allocating 100gb to it? After all these years I hadn't touched the partitioning side of things!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

My concern was more around the sh*t tonne of personal folders and files. Will they not be destroyed upon deleting all partitions?
I guess another good question would be, Does it make a difference whether the system files are in its own partition as apposed to sitting in one big data pile with the rest of my stuff?

If you delete ALL partitions, ALL folders and files will be deleted and gone.

So, backup personal files before installing 8-----videos, mp3s, Word files, Excel files, bookmarks, email, whatever you have.

In a normal installation, Windows (system files), applications, and data are on C.

You can easily put data on some other partition if you want to. That has advantages and is what many of us do.

But Windows will be on C. Applications can often be put on some other partition, but there is usually no good reason to have applications anywhere but C.

My setup: C for Windows and applications. D for ALL data.

You don't need to get concerned about making another partition immediately. You can do it after installing 8 and thinking it over for a while. A C partition of 80 or 100 GB is usually enough if you want to split your drive up.

 

[SinnerCoco]

My concern was more around the sh*t tonne of personal folders and files. Will they not be destroyed upon deleting all partitions?
I guess another good question would be, Does it make a difference whether the system files are in its own partition as apposed to sitting in one big data pile with the rest of my stuff?

If you delete ALL partitions, ALL folders and files will be deleted and gone.

So, backup personal files before installing 8-----videos, mp3s, Word files, Excel files, bookmarks, email, whatever you have.

In a normal installation, Windows (system files), applications, and data are on C.

You can easily put data on some other partition if you want to. That has advantages and is what many of us do.

But Windows will be on C. Applications can often be put on some other partition, but there is usually no good reason to have applications anywhere but C.

My setup: C for Windows and applications. D for ALL data.

You don't need to get concerned about making another partition immediately. You can do it after installing 8 and thinking it over for a while. A C partition of 80 or 100 GB is usually enough if you want to split your drive up.

Totally forgot I had a 2Tb external HDD.
I'll just back up all my stuff, gives me/forces me to tidy up everything!

Thanks heaps for the extremely swift response, and I think I'll go to sleep now seeing as it's 4am here. ><

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I think the better decision is to make a system partition about 100 Gb first, and after installing the OS to divide the unallocated space as You like it.

So on my "Primary Partition" will I be clicking "Shrink" and then allocating 100gb to it? After all these years I hadn't touched the partitioning side of things!

If you are going to do a clean install of 8 and not keep 7, you would shrink C after installing 8. That might be doable with Windows Disk Management. If not, you can use Partition Wizard.

You shrink C. That generates "unallocated space". You then convert the unallocated space into another partition.

There are other ways to do the partitioning, such as using Diskpart, but there's no over-riding reason to do so.