[Somnamna]

I have XP installed on the only hard drive in the PC in a partition that uses all of the C: drive - there is no unallocated space.

I want to install Win7 and dual boot.

[ I have done this on another PC by installing Win7 on a second hard drive. Although it always booted straight into Win7, with no option to boot XP, I fixed this by using EasyBCD to add XP to the BCD.]

So my problem is this: how do I get another partition added to the hard drive on the PC that has a C: drive using up all the hard disk space?

I presume I need to reduce the size of the C: partition first, then create a new partition from the unallocated space that is then freed up.

But I've never done it before and could do with some pointers.

I do have Acronis True Image 11, and thought about making a system image and storing it on a USB drive, wiping the C: drive, re-creating a smaller C: partition, and then restoring the image to this smaller C: partition.

But I'm not sure if Acronis True Image 11 would be happy squeezing an image from a bigger partition into a smaller one, even though the data is much smaller and would fit easily into the new C: partition that I would create.

Any help gratefully received.

[Mumbodog]

I do have Acronis True Image 11, and thought about making a system image and storing it on a USB drive, wiping the C: drive, re-creating a smaller C: partition, and then restoring the image to this smaller C: partition.

But I'm not sure if Acronis True Image 11 would be happy squeezing an image from a bigger partition into a smaller one, even though the data is much smaller and would fit easily into the new C: partition that I would create.

This will work, as long as there is enough room for the Data, Acronis does not care about partition size comapred to the size of the partition it imaged. So if the data on the C drive you imaged was 45gb, and you wanted to restore that image to a 45gb partition, it will work, make sense? When Acronis images a drive or partition, it does not include free space in the backup, only data. Another reason Acronis is great software.


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[Somnamna]

Thanks Mumbodog. I think I'll give that a try at the weekend (when the girlfriend is out and I can play with her PC ).

[TheOutcaste]

Easiest to just install EASEUS Partition Manager (Home Edition) and shrink the XP partition. It's free.

[Somnamna]

Originally Posted by TheOutcaste

Easiest to just install EASEUS Partition Manager (Home Edition) and shrink the XP partition. It's free.

Now THAT sounds perfect!

I'll be checking that out soon! (I'll do a system image backup anyway - just in case ).

[Somnamna]

Originally Posted by TheOutcaste

Easiest to just install EASEUS Partition Manager (Home Edition) and shrink the XP partition. It's free.

Worked perfectly! Thank you very much. I now have my dual boot (XP / Win7) system.