Split A Partition for Dual Booting?

I currently have Windows XP installed on a 500GIG HDD. I currently have 148 gigs free. The used space is vitally important files that I am unable to back up at the moment, so nothing can happen to these files.

Is there a way to somehow partition off a portion of the remaining free space (maybe 50GIGs) and install a copy of Windows 7 I can dual boot to?

Thanks!

 

Absolutely. You just need to use one of the partition management programs you can find here at MG, and create the new partition. One note. You probably want to defragment your drive prior to trying to make a new partition. This will give you the maximum amount of contiguous free space.

 

Awesome! Thanks. I took a look in the files section and searched "partition" and got a few different options. Is there one in-particular that is preferred among the MG staff?

Thanks!

 

Easeus and Partition Wizard are both safe in my opinion. They both work essentially the same way with a similar interface. Check out their websites for step by step guides. Partition Wizard allows you to create a free bootable CD so the partitioning is done outside of Windows which I rather like. It is also a safeguard so that if anything goes wrong you have a way to undo the changes outside of Windows. (I've never had anything go wrong with either of those programs I just like the option.)

Definitely defragment your HD before any partitioning to minimize the moving of files during the resizing.

 

Thanks all! Used Easeus and I'm running a fresh copy of Win7. Worked great!

Thanks again!