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From: MATT on 23 Jun 2008 00:10
Hi,

I've got a Dell laptop, with Vista Home Premium, and I love it.

I need to install XP as well, and make it a dual boot system, because I want
to run some audio software using XP.

Right now, my ~300GB drive is partitioned as follows:

> 78MB: Healthy EISA partition, which I cannot delete using Disk Management.
> RECOVERY: 10GB.
> C: (Vista), using 12 out of 80 GB, haven't been able to shrink it further.
> 80GB unallocated - this used to be in C:, then I shrank C:
> DATA: 90GB
> FREE SPACE: 40GB

I want to create a new partition to install XP on, but cannot do so b/c I
have four partitions already. I cannot delete the EISI partition - I would,
but am unable to.

What's my best approach here?

Should I get a good disk partition software (Disk Magic isn't (yet)
Vista-ready), move & resize my partitions as I want them, then install XP
(and fix the MBR)? If so, any recommendations?

Or should I backup everything and wipe the whole disk clean, then install
XP, partitioning the drive into four parts (Recovery, VISTA, XP & DATA)? If
I do that, I don't know if I can install Vista - Dell didn't include
installation disks, they included recovery disks. Would I be able to use
those disks to install Vista on a specific partition, or would they just
wipe my disk clean and return it to factory install state?

Many thanks!

Matthew

From: Yousuf Khan on 28 Jun 2008 11:23
MATT wrote:
> I want to create a new partition to install XP on, but cannot do so b/c
> I have four partitions already. I cannot delete the EISI partition - I
> would, but am unable to.

Do you know what's on the EISI partition? Do you ever use it?

> What's my best approach here?
>
> Should I get a good disk partition software (Disk Magic isn't (yet)
> Vista-ready), move & resize my partitions as I want them, then install
> XP (and fix the MBR)? If so, any recommendations?

As someone else has mentioned, BootItNextGeneration (BING), is a good
shareware utility that runs off of a CD that can resize, recreate
partitions. Don't know why your Vista Disk Management can't delete the
EISI partition, but if it can't, then BING can. But you better make sure
you know what is on that EISI partition before you do it. It could be
something essential to the operation of your laptop, or maybe not.

> Or should I backup everything and wipe the whole disk clean, then
> install XP, partitioning the drive into four parts (Recovery, VISTA, XP
> & DATA)? If I do that, I don't know if I can install Vista - Dell
> didn't include installation disks, they included recovery disks. Would
> I be able to use those disks to install Vista on a specific partition,
> or would they just wipe my disk clean and return it to factory install
> state?

The OEM "recovery disks" will wipe everything clean and return them to
the factory defaults.

Yousuf Khan
From: Arno Wagner on 28 Jun 2008 19:41
Previously Ed Light <nobody(a)nobody.there> wrote:
> bootitng could do what you need. I ran the Vista demo along side XP with
> that. It's a little challenging to figure out, but the newsgroup is
> very responsive.

> You can have 4 primary partitions working together at a time, but lots
> of them on the disk. I put all my data partitions as volumes in one
> extended partition. While you have more than 4 primaries you have to use
> "bing" as the partition manager. It can manage them from its HD
> installation, or a floppy, or a CD.

You cannot have more than 4 primary partitions, as there is
only space for 4 partitions in the main partition table. You
can, however, have a bootmanager that changes your partitioning
on request during boot. The others are then free space while
not ''swapped into'' the primary (and with 4 primary partitions,
only) partition table. If you want an extended partition,
you have to sacrifice one of the entries for it and can only have
3 primary partitions at any one time. I wouls suspect that ''bing''
keeps some meta partition information for itself to be able to
change the partitioning when you use 4 primaries.

Incidentially, this capability of ''bing'' sounds very neat when
you want to have several independent Windows installations.

Arno
From: Rod Speed on 28 Jun 2008 21:40
Ed Light <nobody(a)nobody.there> wrote:

> Arno, yes, that's what I thought I said!

> Also, I *think* the extended is a primary.

Nope, its an extended.


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