need help partitioning hard drive....

[NoN]

Dual booting is fine as long you let the 2 OS on your system drive...uninstall a dual boot can left markers (bad sectors) on a drive forever or after a hard repairing.

is it possible to have more than 1 OS on the same drive?????? i thought that was not possible

Is that was not the questions you asked us???

PS: Same drive but two partitions and i suggest 20Gigs at least for XP...

 

[karlsnooks]

rome,

Ok to allow for all kinds of growth, my recommendation is:

Create one and only one partition at this time.
Leave the rest of the space as unused.

When and if you decide to put XP on there, then you can create a partition to receive XP.

You should be perfectly safe creating a single partition of 150 GB.

In just a second, I'll send another post showing you how to use your Win 7 DVD to prepare your hard drive as desired.

 

[karlsnooks]

rome,

What many people do not know is that you can get to a command prompt using your Win 7 DVD.

Once you are at that command prompt, then you are going to use the DISKPART program to prepare your hard drive.

​

[FONT=&quot]HOW TO GET TO A COMMAND PROMPT WITH A WIN 7 DVD[/FONT]​

1. Boot up from your Windows 7 DVD.
   At the first dialog window, press SHIFT + F10 key combo
2. You will have a X:> command prompt
3. X: is a ram drive created by Windows 7.

​

[FONT=&quot][/FONT]Actually, you can access the command prompt from any dialog window during the Win 7 install by using Shift+F10.

​

[FONT=&quot][/FONT]

 

[rome]

Thanx so much all...... for now i will do exactly as Karlsnooks has explined.

 

[karlsnooks]

rome,

Now with you being at a command prompt, the next step will be to wipe the hard disk clean.

​

[FONT=&quot]WIPE A DISK CLEAN[/FONT]​

· type DiskPart, Enter key
· type List disk, Enter key
note the numeral of the disk you want to clean
for example purposes, I’ll be using the numeral 0
· type Select disk 0, Enter key
· type Detail disk, Enter key
this info will let you know if you selected correctly
· type Clean ALL, Enter key
your entire disk is being overwritten with zeros.
This can take a considerable amount of time, in your case probably an hour. Be patient. Do not interrupt this "clean". That little led which indicates disk activity will be blinking furiously.


Now after you see the DiskPart prompt again,
the "clean" will be finished and you can continue.


type List Disk and hit Enter
type Select Disk 0 and hit Enter
type Detail Disk 0 and hit Enter
that will help you see the present status


type Create Partition Primary SIZE=153600 and hit Enter
...the size parameter specifies megabytes
...1024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte
...150 GB = 150 x 1024

type Select Partition 1 and hit Enter
type Detail Partition and hit Enter
...just for you own edification
type ACTIVE and hit enter
...this will declare this as a bootable partition
type FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK and hit Enter
...wait for the format to finish
type ASSIGN and hit Enter
...a drive letter is assigned to the partition
type EXIT and hit Enter

...will exit DiskPart
type EXIT and hit Enter
...will exit the command shell back to the Win 7 install program.

 

[Night Hawk]

rome before you do something you will regret I suggest you review the guide for setting up a dual of 7 with XP. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html

Since you are running a laptop with 7 preinstalled you would refer to Method #2 seen in the guide there. Wiping the drive isn't necessary especially without having created a set of 7 recovery disks to preserve the recovery partition and preactivation seen with the preinstall.

 

[NoN]

Yes, better drive him to the right way, now. And He should create those restore discs anyway!

+1

 

[rome]

what exactly is a restore disc??

 

[karlsnooks]

rome,

The term system restore disk means different things to different people, to differernt OSes and to different manufacturers.

The world will not come to an end and your computer will not self-destruct and go up in a cloud of smoke if you simply follow the procedure I gave.

That is going to give you a WIN 7 system with plenty of room for you to set space aside for a 2nd operating system or for a large amount of data storage.

Get yourself a solid system, up and running, and become acquainted with the marvels of Win 7.

After using Win 7, you will never look back and want to use an ancient OS whose lifetime is very limited. Sometimes people get very attached to their old Model A's but put them in a modern Mercedes and they never go back.

This procedure will allow you to go backwards and install XP.

 

[karlsnooks]

rome,

The great master himself, Brink, wrote a tutorial on installing Win 7 and XP on the same computer, covering both Win 7 first or XP first.

Here's the link:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html?ltr=D

 

[rome]

rome,

The great master himself, Brink, wrote a tutorial on installing Win 7 and XP on the same computer, covering both Win 7 first or XP first.

Here's the link:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html?ltr=D

i am currently reading the link...n on a personal note i really do want to move on to win 7 but i am having issues with a couple of old games me n my frnds still enjoy on LAN like Red Alert 2, Tiberian Sun to name a few that are not working on win 7 so its making me hesitant to move on to a system that is running only win 7

 

[karlsnooks]

rome,
after you've got Win 7 on there, then we will go over getting XP programs to run under Win 7. There are several approaches available. When I was doing some testing, I installed XP as a virtual machine and never looked back (except to delete the virtual machine after I'd proven to myself that it worked).

 

[rome]

karlsnooks,

win 7 is on and that is what im running currently but i find my self repeatedly going back to my old laptop that is running on xp for certain programs n that one is a really ancient config

 

[NoN]

karlsnooks,

win 7 is on and that is what im running currently but i find my self repeatedly going back to my old laptop that is running on xp for certain programs n that one is a really ancient config

So to resume what you would like to do...

You already got W7 installed
You want Dual Boot with XP to play games that are not compatible to W7.

First, Grab few DVDs, then create with the tools you've got in W7 and /or from the manufacturer some restore discs (neverknow, in case a failure during the process).

Second, follow what's karlsnooks showing you.

Third, install your XP in your new partition and then decide on boot, which system you would like to start!

 

[Night Hawk]

Once you first install XP to the new primary to be created in the space now vacant 7 won't load up at first until you repair the mbr entries and other boot information. Having a set of recovery disks made up will not allow you to restore the preinstall of 7 but also use the repair tools for things like the automatic startup repair.

The option for simply burning the repair tools onto a cd-r is found in the "Control Panel>Backup & Restore" section there. This is one thing many still are not aware of apparently.

If the laptop is still under warranty you will also want to preserve the small recovery partition at least until you follow the manufacturer's instructions for creating the set of recovery disks before ever wiping the entire drive being that you are also rather new at partitioning to begin with.

First you want to know that you can restore the preinstalled version of 7 before ever considering wiping the entire drive as someone suggested earlier. Once you are a bit more confident from setting up drives in different fashions for multibooting different versions and know how to restore the OS or even a System image of the drive which would be an idea here if you have a second spare drive onhand(external) to safeguard that. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/663-backup-complete-computer-create-image-backup.html

 

[gregrocker]

Follow Method B in http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html to shrink your Win7, then create a Partition for XP.

Use booted XP CD to format the partition as the partition table is slightly different in XP.

After XP is installed, add Win7 to the Dual Boot using EasyBCD 2.0 beta after doing quick registration in their forum to use the beta. You'll also need to install Net Framework 2.0 to use EasyBCD in XP.

If there are problems, we can help you start WIn7 back up to add XP from the WIn7 side, as it sometimes works better.

 

[Night Hawk]

The XP cd lacks the separate format option later seen with the Vista and 7 installation disks. If you already used the free Partition Wizard live cd for resizing you can easily use that a second time to create the XP primary and see it formatted when booted from that.

 

[karlsnooks]

rome,
as recommended by both myself and GregRocker, follow the procedure given in the SevenForums tutorial.

The one thing first is to take a snapshot of the window displayed by DiskManagement.

The reason for this is to make meaningful and accurate recommendations regarding further partitioning and possibly shrinking of existing partitions.

To take a snapshot of the DiskManagment dialog:

Use the snipping tool which is a part of windows.

To run the snipping tool:
WIN | type Snip | Enter key

To run DiskManagement:
WIN | type DISKMGMT.MSC | Enter key

be sure and maximize the DiskManagement display before taking the "snip".