Dual Boot Windows&Windows

[jmann_au]

Hi All,

I am sorry if this has been covered before, but for the life of me I haven't been able to find any info on it.

I have been given a R60 laptop by my work and want to re-install windows on it (by using system recovery), but at the same time keep the current windows installation on it on a separate partition.

I have successfully added a new blank partition and was about to use the system recovery program to reinstall the default windows installation but I can't seem to find out if it is possible to use the recovery program on anything other than the default partition.

Does anyone know if it is possible to use the system recovery program to reinstall windows to a second partition?

You should all be really proud of the brilliant resource you have created!

[BillMorrow]

not possible AFAIK..

but you SHOULD be given the option of installing to the first partition and retaining data on the second partition..

not sure how you will dual boot after that, though..

also, be SURE to back up before you move the content of PTN 1 to PTN 2..

welcome to the planetwide thinkpad community..

[waynesdukeess]

Hi, What I did:

I had Xpsp2 OME CD for my Laptop, Made free HDD space(you have that) installed Xp in free space. now have dual boot.

BUT later I used VISTA home basic upgrade(buy on ebay for under
$45).

luck

[BruisedQuasar]

What you wish to do is possible but very risky unless you have the proper software tools and know exactly how to use them.

The problem is this. Windows turns the entire hard drive into a single partition. So, what you wish to do involves 1)resizing that partition (the free space) and 2) adding a partition in the free space. A two partition hard drive is much safer to set up BEFORE installation of an operating system.

A safer alternative would be to use a hard drive cloning software package like Norton Ghost or Acronis Disk Manager to make, compress, and copy a mirror image of your hard drive to another hard drive. The problem is this. Norton Ghost's thick manual is practically unusable and a user should not attempt learning how to mirror image (make an iso file), copy and reinstall a hard disk in a hothouse situation. If you figure out how to mirror your hdd, where to put it? These programs are geared for creating and saving a image of your hard drive BEFORE problems happen, not after. The kicker is you cannot store an image on the same hdd as it occupies, so you must have the HDD partitioned prior to launching the process, or have to hdd in your system, which is best anyway. I manage to copy my images over to an external Fat32 Hard Drive but only AFTER I save them on a partition. These #$& programs seem incapable of saving an image to an external device.

I think the Linux Gparted is much safer and better program that any commercial one available. Again, figuring out how to use Gparted on the fly is a tall order.

Your best bet in my opinion is this: If you must have the data in your current Windows install, I would seriously
consider taking your PC to a Computer shop and pay them to do it. A decent PC tech can do in a few minutes what will take you days to make heads or tails of. For one thing, I have not seen a single decent newbie manual for how to use any of the HDD clone programs.

For instance, figure out how to start GPARTED and you will be staring at a odd looking command line.

--Bruised

[Stargate199]

Here is what I suggest. Note that this may not work. Back up all of your data first before attempting.

First make a image of your hard drive as is and save it to an external hard drive. Acronis True Image should work fine as the trial period gives you full functionality. With the image saved, go ahead and do the system recovery. Once that is done, use a program that allows you to resize and make partitions. (Partition Magic should work) Resize the partition and then use True image to put the old install back on. Now you will have to edit the boot menu to allow you to boot both versions of Windows.

Now if you cannot get this to work, you may be able to restore your old drive image from the original you saved.

[tomh009]

The problem is this. Windows turns the entire hard drive into a single partition. So, what you wish to do involves 1)resizing that partition (the free space) and 2) adding a partition in the free space. A two partition hard drive is much safer to set up BEFORE installation of an operating system.

Note that this applies to OEM versions of Windows. Retail (or MSDN) versions will happily coexist on multiple partitions, or even sharing a single partition, though of course you do need to take care when installing to not reformat an existing partition.

[bonestonne]

dual booting is the easy part. its very easy to dual boot windows with another windows, just install the older version first.

as for having your data back, i'm not sure its possible. you could try to use norton ghost and make a copy of your windows to dual boot with, and then use system recovery, but there's no direct way to make it happen.

[jamerslong]

I think the Linux Gparted is much safer and better program that any commercial one available. Again, figuring out how to use Gparted on the fly is a tall order.

--Bruised

Gparted has a GUI based Live Cd and USB. and it is a nice system. it disturbed me when i looked at the version number and seeing it still in beta (v .18) but i just might be crazy. i use acronis to resize partitions and then Delete the Fat32 and repartition them within Gparted i know it sounds crazy but gparted dosent like my drive for some reason and wont let me resize. it wont feed specific errors.
i can vouch for acronis though. good stuff

[crashnburn]

Interesting.