Installing two systems

[RonAshman]

Hi,

There's something I want to try. There's this old laptop running WinXP.
I've searched the web and some people have had problems with Win7 in this particular model, and some people haven't, so I wanna try it myself.

* There's a single hard drive.
* There are 2 partitions. One for WinXP (C:\) and one for personal data (D:\). This last partition is, of course, backed up in an external drive.

I know about the dual boot installation, but I want to do something else I have already tried, using different versions of Win7, not WinXP.


I want to:
1- Shrink D:
2- Create new partition in unformatted space
3- Hide C:
4- Install Win7 in new partition
5- Set Win7 partition as active
6- That's all.

Then, try Win7 and if it doesn't work smooth just delete it or hide the Win7 partition and set the XP one as active. All of this done with partitioning software (Partition Magic 8).
I'm not interested in the "dual boot" screen where I have to select the OS. I don't mind booting the PC with Partition Magic and hiding one OS partition and setting the other one as active.

I did check this guide: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html
But I don't believe that's exactly what I want to do.


My question is: will something be messed up or should it work OK?


Thanks in advance.

 

[gregrocker]

Shrink D in Disk mgmt to the size you want to create a new partition. Partition or Volume - Shrink

Boot the Win7 installer and create and format a partition in the space during Steps 7/8 of Clean Install Windows 7. Make doubly sure you choose the correct space for install.

Win7 will configure a Dual Boot menu but we can help you hide it if you don't want to see it. I prefer to set it to 5-10 seconds so it zips right by it to the preferred OS until you decide which you want to keep. You can make these changes here: Default Operating System - Change Default Boot OS - Windows 7 Help Forums

Once you decide which to keep post back a screenshot of Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image and we will give you the exact steps to do this including how to move the System boot files if necessary and recover the disk space as desired from the OS you decide to get rid of.

 

[RonAshman]

Hi,

Thanks a lot for replying.
It looks like this is gonna take me some time, since I will be replacing the hard disk


So I'll post back later.
Thanks again.

 

[gregrocker]

You can also run the maker's HD Diagnostic extended CD scan. which might be able to fix the error.

 

[RonAshman]

Thank you.
Will give it a try when I get home.

I was kinda expecting this. The hard drive was making a strange noise randomly. Not sure if it's fixable, so will give it a try.

Thanks.

 

[VTechSquad]

That should work fine. You can shrink D: in the disk management or you could use some third party software for the same better stick to disk manager.