Will Vista carve out space for another partition during the setup?

  • Thread starter Thread starter JMI
  • Start date Start date
J

JMI

Hello,

I've got Vista Premium Upgrade and wanted to know if the Vista install will
carve out space for another partition on an existing drive (say one in which
XP is already installed). I'd feel more comfortable doing a Dual boot
between Vista and XP Home until I know how well Vista will really work for
me.

I'm thinking Linux does this as do other OSs (BeOS comes to mind)

Thanks,

Jeff
 
Hmm, I don't know. I don't use more than one operating system, though I do
believe Vista can set up partitions in all drives (i've opened the option
before). Then again, my other drives don't have an operating system running
on them.

If your other drive is going to dual boot with XP, though, I don't see why
you can't just boot up with XP on that drive and then partition. Then again,
I'm not really a good geek on this subject.
 
JMI said:
Hello,

I've got Vista Premium Upgrade and wanted to know if the Vista install will
carve out space for another partition on an existing drive (say one in which
XP is already installed). I'd feel more comfortable doing a Dual boot
between Vista and XP Home until I know how well Vista will really work for
me.

I'm thinking Linux does this as do other OSs (BeOS comes to mind)
Click to expand...

Neither Linux nor Vista will "carve out space" by themselves. You have
to tell them where to install and where to create partitions.

My understanding of an upgrade is that Vista will replace your XP
install since this is normally the reason people do an upgrade (aside
from cost, naturally).

Since you are more comfortable dual-booting, that's what you should do.
You should either make a partition for Vista on your one hard drive with
third-party partitioning tools (since XP can't natively do
non-destructive partitioning) or purchase a second hard drive and
install Vista on it by itself. Vista needs a *lot* of drive space and
you didn't mention the size of your current hard drive.

There are issues with dual-booting XP and Vista; do a Google Groups
Advanced Search for that topic in the various newsgroups to which you've
crossposted.


Malke
 
JMI said:
Hello,

I've got Vista Premium Upgrade and wanted to know if the Vista install will
carve out space for another partition on an existing drive (say one in which
XP is already installed). I'd feel more comfortable doing a Dual boot
between Vista and XP Home until I know how well Vista will really work for
me.

I'm thinking Linux does this as do other OSs (BeOS comes to mind)

Thanks,

Jeff
Click to expand...
If by "carve out" you mean SHRINK the partition on which XP resides in
order to create free space for a new partition on a drive that had no
free space to start with, the answer is definitely "no."

If you're asking if Vista Setup can create a partition in
already-existing free space on the drive on which XP is installed, then
the answer is "yes."

Ron
 
JMI said:
Hello,

I've got Vista Premium Upgrade and wanted to know if the Vista install
will carve out space for another partition on an existing drive (say one
in which XP is already installed). I'd feel more comfortable doing a
Dual boot between Vista and XP Home until I know how well Vista will
really work for me.

I'm thinking Linux does this as do other OSs (BeOS comes to mind)
Click to expand...

Following advice found in this forum, I downloaded and used BootIT Next
Generation (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html) to resize my
single XP partition and create a new one. I then installed Vista (Ultimate)
on the second partition for the same reason you plan.

Be aware, though, that the boot bit still requires Vista to put some stuff
on C:. Another caveat is that booting to Vista does not overwrite restore
points in XP, but booting XP overwrites restore points in Vista. That can
be avoided by using BitLocker on Vista, but BitLocker requires an external
key cache, like a USB key. Considering the intent, that makes sense. But
it's not practical for me.

I'm slowly installing stuff to see how it works, and hunting for drivers,
etc. Once my critical pieces in place I'll backup my data with the transfer
utility, hold my breath, repartition back to a single disk, reformat, and
start over.
 
No, I mean like what what Partition Magic can do, create a new partition on
a drive which has free space available but is already partitioned to just
one drive.

Thanks,

Jeff
 
On Thu said:
I've got Vista Premium Upgrade and wanted to know if the Vista install will
carve out space for another partition on an existing drive (say one in which
XP is already installed). I'd feel more comfortable doing a Dual boot
between Vista and XP Home until I know how well Vista will really work for
me.
Click to expand...

No. It's up to you to create and/or resize your partitions
beforehand. I wouldn't trust an OS to do that, anyway.
I'm thinking Linux does this as do other OSs (BeOS comes to mind)
Click to expand...

Sometimes they do, sometimes not, and sometimes they try but screw up.

Ubuntu's default is to wipe everything off the HD; after all, it's so
brilliant, why would you want anything else?

So...

--------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - -
Click to expand...
Never turn your back on an installer program
 
Hi, Jeff.

Define what YOU mean by "carve out" and by "free space". If you mean unused
space within a partition, the answer is No, Vista Setup cannot create a new
partition within an existing partition. But if you mean that you have
unallocated space outside your existing single partition, then the answer is
Yes, Vista Setup can create a partition in that unallocated space, then
format it and install Vista there.

In WinXP, run Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) to see if the Graphical View
shows any Unallocated Space (with a GREEN bar over it). If you have at
least 15 GB (20 GB would be much better), then Vista Setup can create a new
partition there. (I'm using Vista and its Disk Management uses the term
"Free Space" twice on the one page - and the term means something different
each time. :>( In the Volume List, the "Free Space" column means unused
space within a volume. In the Graphical View, "Free Space" means
unallocated space outside any partition. I no longer dual-boot WinXP, and I
don't recall the exact terms it uses.)

Vista has added some tools to Disk Management, including Shrink Volume.
Once you get Vista installed, you can use DM to shrink an existing
partition. So if you have a 100 GB HD, all in a single partition, but you
are using only 60 GB of the space in that 100 GB partition, you can use DM
to Shrink that partition by 40 GB, then create a new partition in the
vacated space. But you can't do that during Vista installation. And
WinXP's DM can't shrink an existing volume.

Since you seem to be an experienced user, you might want to check out the
DiskPart.exe shell. (It's NOT the same as the DiskPart command in the
Recovery Console!) This is a powerful tool and it can do a lot of damage,
so be careful. In Vista, DiskPart can do even more than Disk Management,
including Shrink Volume, but I don't think that WinXP's version was updated
to include this command.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Mail in Vista Ultimate x64)
 
cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user) said:
No. It's up to you to create and/or resize your partitions
beforehand. I wouldn't trust an OS to do that, anyway.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I used the evaluation (free) version of BootItNG to
partition my XP system when I got ready to dual-boot with Vista.

Gary VanderMolen
 
I mean like what what Partition Magic can do,
Click to expand...

Do you have Partition Magic?

If so I used my PM8 to make partitions -- I split an empty SATA drive
into two equal logical drives -- and then installed VISTA on one of
these.

But I did find that I had to uninstall Boot Magic before VISTA would
install even although I did not have it active -- I had intended at one
time to dual boot XP 64 with the XP 32 Pro I have but never did so BM
was installed but disabled.

I have no problem with this dual boot except the one mentioned about
Restore points in VISTA being deleted.

Now if anyone can find a Boot Manager that hides partitions as BM does
maybe this would not be a problem. I've seen conflicting reports on
whether BootIt does offer hidden partitions in the way BM does.
 
Back
Top