Dual Windows 7 on same drive install.

[yisroel]

Hello.
Time has come to finally reinstall the operating system on my laptop, a new job plus the current install is now become bloated, slow and there is nothing better and faster than a fresh install of the operating system.
I am trying to plan in advance and make the most use of my currenly very limited free time to spend on reinstalling my laptop.
Here is the situation, I am provided with a copy of Windows 7 Professional 64 for my computer by my employer and I have the same copy of the system myself. I wish to make 2 separate installs on the same drive, on 2 different partitions. One is my personal install and the other for professional use.

Now my idea is to make the first install on the first partition (with drivers, browser, etc) and then simply clone the install to the other partition and activate separately thus potentially saving time in the process.

Now, with the setup as explained, what is the way to proceed with the cloning, what software should/could I employ and perhaps BSD/boot editing involvement needed.

Thank you very much.

 

[bigmck]

You must have two different Product Keys to install on each Win 7. Why not just setup two different User Accounts and put the work programs on one and the home on the other User Account. This would be quicker than installing two Win 7 which you don't need. This tells you how to do it. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/181024-user-account-create.html

 

[AddRAM]

I would make 2 partitions, install windows 7 on each, takes 15 minutes each. You should have the laptop done in 4 hours tops.

Have the network drivers ready.

Get the work partition done first, then play with yours in your free time.

Jim has a great option.

 

[yisroel]

You must have two different Product Keys to install on each Win 7

Which I do, my personal copy and one provided to my on my work place.

Thank you for providing information about setting up user accounts.

I rather have outright separated partitions for each install.
Could you please offer help for the intent as explained in the original post.

Thank you.

 

[DavidE]

Does fresh install mean a Clean install, or are you restoring an "OEM recovery" ?
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

For "copying" the "OS-1" partition to the "OS-2" partition you should use imaging, not cloning.
After re-installing your personal "OS-1", create a Backup Image of the OS-1 partition, and then restore that image to the OS-2 partition.
Macrium Reflect (free) is one program that can do this (I use Acronis paid).
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html

After restoring the Image to OS-2, you need to change the activation key to the company provided key.

You may need to tweak some things after copying OS-1 to OS-2 to get an OS boot selection window, but I don't think that is too difficult.
EasyBCD is a reliable 3rd party program that can do this and is easy to use.
Just make sure there is only ONE ACTIVE partition, that is what is used to boot Windows.
I don't know if Macrium has an option to set this during the restore, but if it does, I would choose to NOT make the partition ACTIVE.

Post a screen print of your Disk Management for changes like this, now/after reinstalling OS-1/anytime with your partition structure.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html
That can help others here to give you the best advice.

I ALWAYS have complete backups of everything before making changes like this !