[I.T Boy]

Howdeee
I hate starting new threads but I can’t seem to find one that fits this question and I don’t wana hijack some other thread...

Well I have just got a Dell XPS m1530 laptop with vista ultimate on it but would like to dual boot it with XP Pro
I went to create a new partition using the built in vista tool and then Paragon Partition Manager 9, it lets me shrink the existing OS partition so I have about 40GB's to put XP Pro on but the is unformatted, unalacated space. It will then not let me format it as it says the are to many partition on this drive.Being a Dell its got some EISA partition for the diagnostics, a recovery a partition the main OS partition and a tiny partition at the end I have no idea what its there for or what it does.
Is there a limit to the amount of partitions on a drive?
I wana leave it as it is but stick XP on it if I can. I.e. not have to format the lot and reinstall everything.
Thanks for any info on this in advance

[Elvandil]

Do you have recovery disks? Almost any change to the partitions will destroy the Dell MBR and since no one uses it but Dell, it cannot be repaired. You may lose access to your recovery partition. It is a good idea to make a complete image of the drive before making any changes.

There is not any practical limit on the number of partitions (until you run out of letters) and there are tools for making as many as you want. But an OS needs a primary partition to boot and that may be what you are seeing.

Look at the drive offline with Gparted LiveCD (I wouldn't use Partition Magic if I were you). Make sure that the partition you want for XP is primary and delete or merge that small, final partition if it has no function.

(PS. Paragon is good, too. Are you using it from within Windows or from the boot CD? The CD may provide greater control over partitioning when Windows is not running.)

[danieldp]

i would suggest dont since you have the ultimate version, belive me its the best I've been using for over 3 months now, with no issues at all, concerning partition dont even dare to if u aren't a tech or u may get into trouble and untill u realize it, u may late...

Only try if ur interresting in sueing ur own happiness...I'm not kidding.

[Elvandil]

You might also consider running XP in a virtual machine inside Vista so you can run XP and Vista at the same time.

www.virtualbox.org