Win 7 plus Win 7 on 2 partitions?

gregrocker said:

Adrian -

To expand C to the right, burn free Partition Wizard bootable CD using ImgBurn at 4x speed with Verify: Free Download Magic Partition Manager Software - Partition Wizard Online
ImgBurn - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

Back up your files externally, boot PW CD, rightclick D, select Resize, drag left grey border to right to make as much space as you'd like to add to C, OK.

Now rightclick C to Resize, drag right grey border to right to take up the space you made, OK, Apply all steps.

If you want to save doing this until just before you do the reinstall, you only need to Resize D left border since you'll be deleting C and Recovery partition to create a new partition there using the Custom install Drive Options I showed you earlier.

Be sure to delete the paging file from other HD. I would keep it on C since it will be big enough.

Thanks Greg, I am reasonable comfortable with resizing partitions and have created a bootable CD just now for the Partition Wizard prog. Seems very similar to the methodology employed by several such programs.

Question - the total size of my existing Win 7 OS and all apps is just 35Gb on my other drive/partition. What would be a sensible (smallest) size be for the new C: partition in that case? I will keep the page file on C: as you suggest. I obviously don't want to waste space, my drives are actually twin 300Gb ones, not 500Gb as I originally said.

Thanks
Adrian

The size of C is up to you depending upon how you think it might grow. We recommend 100gb if you have it to spare and that is the size you mentioned, so I showed you how to get that using PW CD.

You could always make it smaller and go back to borrow more from D in the future if needed, or make it 100gb and give back some later if it goes unused. Best not to cramp the paging file, however - let it auto-create.

Here are tips to look over for getting a purrfect reinstall: re-install windows 7

gregrocker said:

The size of C is up to you depending upon how you think it might grow. We recommend 100gb if you have it to spare and that is the size you mentioned, so I showed you how to get that using PW CD.

Hi Greg - I will set that C: partition to 70Gb, that gives me 100% more space than is actually needed for physical progs. That seems like a reasonable compromise.

I will let you and BFK know the outcome, I think I have borrowed enough time from both of you - time for action now!

Cheers
Adrian

Well guys, you will see from the attached screengrab that the mission has been accomplished! That is entirely down to you two giving me the step-by-step idiots guide. Thanks SO much for that!

It was not without a few problems though ...

First of all, when in DISKPART mode I was unable to delete the partition that held the factory image for my system. I got the message "Cannot delete a protected partition without the force protected parameter set." I kinda guessed what that meant and exited. Then I used the Partition Wizard Bootable CD to delete that partition and increased the size of the old C: partition to get rid of any unallocated space.

Having done that I recommenced with the DISKPART operations and followed the instructions you gave me, following on from the formatting through to the complete installation of Win 7 on the new C: partition. I have attached a Word doc that incorporates all of that - may be easier for other folk to print out.

So it all seemed to work fine, I installed Windows updates and so on. However then I hit a real snag - on booting from cold I was not given a dual boot screen, the system just went straight to the new C: Win 7 partition.

So, having read about the excellent Easy BCD program in this thread I had already downloaded it to my data partition - so I installed it on C:. I started the application and manually added the old Win 7 on Drive G: and saved that. On re-booting I now had a nice new dual boot option screen - but, another problem arose when I tried to launch the old Win 7 ... "Windows failed to start" was the message I got.

The screen suggested I reboot from the Win 7 program disk and when I got to the Language selection screen, I was to select the "repair your computer" link. I did that and was presented with some options that I could see did not match the partitions I had created. It wasn't just a question of maybe some disk labels were incorrect, I could see from the partition sizes that the repair operation was targeting the wrong destinations. So I aborted that.

It was fairly clear that something had corrupted the boot loader for the old Win 7 partition. Fortunately I had taken a Drive Image of that partition prior to doing all this stuff, so I just restored that image, re-edited Easy BCD to make sure it was seeing the correct 2 partitions, C: and G: ... and rebooted.

I was presented with the dual boot screen and selected the old Win 7 for boot up ... which worked fine! Yippee! I now have a fully working system between which I can easily swap back and forth as I get time to install all my apps on C:.

I guess when the time comes I just edit Easy BCD and remove the reference to G: Win 7? I will then only have the option to boot to C: New Win 7.

I guess I will then use Partition Wizard to delete the old G: Win 7 partition and then expand the partitions on that physical drive to suit.

This was way more 'exciting' than I had planned . I was really concerned at not being able to dual boot at first, but I made my way around the problems.

I cannot thank you 2 guys enough for all your help - I would have really struggled by myself! If there is anything you can see that needs a tweak when you look at my new partitions map, please shout.

Cheers
Adrian

Hi Ted, I have no idea how you could tell that screengrab was taken from my old Win 7 partition - but it was!

Another one attached now, taken after booting from C: New Win 7.

Cheers
Adrian

Bare Foot Kid said:

Hello Adrian.

May I ask a couple questions?

1) How did you choose which OS to boot before you made these changes?

2) Are you going to use the same activation key as the 'old' Windows 7 to activate this one?

Before I started making these changes I was presented with a dual boot screen, listing Win 7 (default) and Vista. It looked exactly the same as I have achieved using EasyBCD.

Once I have completed installing and tweaking all my apps I intend deleting the old Win 7 partition and then activating Win 7 using the original key. Having said that, looking at the fancy license tag on the back of the Win 7 CD, I can't readily see what that might be! I forget what I did 18 months ago when I first installed and activated it.

Here's something I want you to try when you have the time and let me know how it sorts out.

I want you to mark the Disk 1 partition 3 Inactive you can do it from an elevated command window within the 'new' Windows 7, you don't have to boot the disk.

Type these commands in diskpart ...

select disk 1

select partition 3

inactive

you should get a confirmation

Then restart the PC to the new Windows 7 to see if it worked and let me know and we'll go from there.

It won't affect how the PC or which OS boots but it needs done, I wanted to have you do it before all the new work but I didn't know how you were selecting which OS to boot and I didn't want to add to the issues.

Have a look at this snip from Option Two #2 of this tutorial for an outline.

Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

OK - I don't quite see where we're going with this, but have a lot to do over the next week installing apps, so will revert back to you then Ted.

Thanks
Adrian