Windows 7 dual boot?

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snowkiwi

160 posts

Master Geek

#45126 30-Oct-2009 15:51

hi all

I want to try out the lSO of win7 I downloaded earlier this year onto a disk without having to lose my safe working XP.

Can I dual install win 7 onto my xp (media centre edition 2005) 3 yo desktop?
If I need to partition the HDD , is this strait forward?
Any problems you can see.

Cheers

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

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Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#268641 30-Oct-2009 17:59

If your current HDD only has a single partition you will need to resize this and create a second partition before you can install Windows 7 on the same HDD.

The other option is to just use a 2nd HDD if you have one spare that you can connect.

snowkiwi

160 posts

Master Geek

#268645 30-Oct-2009 18:11

that sounds good - I may do the 2nd HDD option on my desktop.

But for my Dell Laptop I'll try to partition the HDD

Thanks

paul151

309 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#268671 30-Oct-2009 20:59

I'm running 2 x Win7 installs and 1 x Vista all on three seperate drives in the one box and all bootable from the same OS loader.. works fine

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snowkiwi

160 posts

Master Geek

#268772 31-Oct-2009 11:55

Paul151 - did you partition it prior to first OS install or after. I need to do it after and wondering how involved/ risky it is so I don't brick the laptop!

BTW why 2 win7 installs? - just for testing or is one the beta.

paul151

309 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#268865 31-Oct-2009 19:38

After the second OS install - from memory I did have to phaff about a bit with the boot loader using a dos based command line editor..

The first Win 7 was for testing when the beta was underway... the second is the RTM version I'm using day to day now...

snowkiwi

160 posts

Master Geek

#269561 3-Nov-2009 11:33

Madcat - did you use a specific program to seperate the drive into 2 partitions. Or did you do this on a clean drive before Installing any OSs?