multiple operating system help

hey gus... need help on this and i'll be very thankful
i am using a win xp on my 160 g internal hard disk.. the drive is split into one primary drive of about 17 g where the xp is installed, and another logical drive where my data is.
using partition magic - is it posible to reduce the size of the logical drive? and then install vista on that new drive.. i've also noticed an option whether to make that new drive logical or primary, which is best for installing the new operating system, specially that if i choose primary then there will be 2 primary drives in the same time, does that make a problem?
thnx

 

Do not use Partition Magic or any other 3rd party partitioning software as they are not Vista compatible yet AFAIK and you will have a failed install or worse by losing your data. You can install Vista on either an extended or logical partition, (I have two Vistas installed, one in extended and one in logical with XP on the primary) and make it 40 to 50 GB in size. You have some work to do to get your drive partitioned properly, back up your stuff and create new partitions. HTH

BTW, will you be dual booting with XP or will you just have Vista?

 

I don't see how any program which simply creates partitions can be "incompatible with Vista"...unless you mean trying to run them within Vista? He wants to do it within XP.

I did exactly what you want to do...I used Paragon Partition Manager to shrink my larger logical drive, and then created & formatted the new partition. Vista installed onto it no problem. I've been dual booting ever since.

 

I agree, doing it from XP. I've seen many issues with people using partition managers in general and with Partition Magic and Acronis specifically. Vista simply would not load erroring out. Since Paragon works for you, I've learned something new today. Now to test this out without fubarring my system.

BTW, did you create the new partition using the manager or reverted to XP for that? Oh, they all say to do a back up just in case, so why spend the money and instead take this opportunity to do a full back up.

 

thnx guys for ure support... heres what i did... i used partitin magic while in win/xp cos i found that this software dont work correctly with windws vista, but the hard disk will be normal after installng vista and using partitin magic with xp, all status and settings and partition spaces will work normally in vista if changed in xp via partition magic.. any way i created 2 primary partitions and one logical, then i formated windows xp and its drive and installed win vista instead.. needed to do that for the large space in that partition... after instaling vista, i restarted the computer to install win/xp (on the other new and empty primary partition), by that i thught there will be no cnflict.. however after i am done... windows only boots with win xp using the new E: partition and in startup never gives me the choice to boot with win vista which i can see its files in the c: partition after logging into win xp.
i have a question.. should i start this again in the opposite way.. like installing vista on a partition while xp is installed in another partition and not installing xp while vista is installed?
thnx

 

You may as well restart, sorry, but you overwrote Vista's boot files. As always with MS products, you load the older OS first and in your case XP. There is a way around it if you don't want to spend another 2 hours reinstalling. I'll see if I can find it.

 

To get Vista to boot:

Boot from the Vista DVD.

Click "next"

Choose "repair your computer"

Point the repair screen to the partion with Vista on it (drive letters may be different than the way they are listed inside Windows XP, use the volume sizes to pick the right one)

Choose "startup repair"

Let her rip, she should find the Vista operation system, fix the boot sector, and enumerate both O/Ses in BCDedit automatically. At least in theory!

If that does not work, things get complicated:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529

Best of luck!

 

Actually, after doing some digging, manually fixing this may be easier than I thought. Try this if the startup and repair does not work (sorry to reply to my own post):


Boot from the Vista DVD.

Click "next"

Choose "repair your computer"

Point the repair screen to the partion with Vista on it (drive letters may be different than the way they are listed inside Windows XP, use the volume sizes to pick the right one

Choose "command prompt"

At the command prompt, type:
cd boot
Bootsect.exe –NT60 All
bootrec.exe /rebuildBCD

Follow the prompts to add all availabe window installations.

 

thnx every body for ure help... problem solved
:major

 

Paragon worked for me, but I ran it through XP, not Vista. The software programmers for the most part haven't caught up & written their software to work in Vista yet. I can't remember if I used Paragon to create the new partition once I shrunk the original or if I used the XP manager...I'm almost positive I used Paragon.