Dell Laptop New Inspiron 14R N4010 solutions

[greengtl]

hi everyone. I am new to this forum and also i am a windows 7 beginner. I have bought a dell laptop 14Rr inspiron n4010 (intel core i5 processor 450M 2.4 Ghz, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 320 GB HDD) last month. I have small issues in it. I got 3 partions in it: one is OEM, reserved partion and another is OS partition. can anyone help how to make partitions in it and use for storing data and my files. i dont know about active partitions and extended and logical partitions. what are they? This laptop comes with windows 7 home premium 64 bit. i want to install windows xp dual boot with windows 7 HP, is it possible. i searched a lot in many forums but cudnt success. i saw this forum also, i found the related but i fear to try whether it works with windows7 HP. i want to practice my old apps compatible with XP so i need good assistance(hopefully a tutorial with screenshots) i really need to know all about this issues in laptops.

 

[marsmimar]

Hello greengtl and welcome to the forum. Windows 7 is quite a bit different from XP. A lot of things you might be used to doing in XP won't be applicable in 7. They are two completely different systems. If you're not sure what you're doing with the partitions you can turn your machine into an expensive paper weight.

Having said that, the first thing I'd suggest you do is make a system image of your 14R along with the accompanying system repair disk. A system image will allow you to restore your machine exactly like it was when the image was made ... the operating system, updates, all personal settings, files, folders, data, etc. You could use 7's built in imaging tool or a free program called Macrium reflect. Many people recommend storing the image on an external hard drive rather than using a lot of DVDs.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/663-backup-complete-computer-create-image-backup.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html

Once you have your image and repair disk you can be safe in messing around with the partitions and learning from experience. As far as dual booting XP, you might consider running XP in a virtual machine. A virtual machine is a software program that installs on your machine just like any other software. Then you can install XP into that software and run it as a separate program rather than creating an additional partition on your hard drive and possibly creating other boot problems. A couple of virtual machines that seem to be popular are VirtualBox and VMware Player.