Beginners Question!!

Hey everyone.. I have a simple question for you guys.. I just installed the Acronis Disk Director Suite and all I wanna do is install the Vista Beta and keep my xp.. When I started the Vista installation.. It gave me a list of drives to install it and obvisouly my C drive came up and one other but wasnt big enough to save it on.. I have a 320 GB drive which is external so I can't use that.. I don't Vista to rewrite my C drive and lose my XP system.. how do I get both to coexist? Thanks

 

Hi gzus2441
Welcome to Wilders

Basically you need to create a primary partition using space from your
"C" partition. This partition will need a letter (say Q or any other not used) then when you install Vista you install it to that partition.

 

yeah i tried that but it didnt work.. some said i might need to uninstall norton system works.. what should i do thanks

 

You need to be a bit more specific of what you have done and whats happened

did you do it as in Disk Director Help contents
manual partition operations
creating partition

You need to commit the operations by clicking on the
chequered flag when you have finished configuring

Vista requires approx 8-9 gigabytes for the Operating System alone

 

ok this is what I did.. I went to create partition wizard and selected free space of the existing partition method and then selected my c drive, then again selected my c drive as the partition I wanted to take the free space from, next it gives me the space to take but the min and max size of my partition that it would create is 7.844 mb.. does that help at all

 

How big is your C drive
It looks like your drive hasn't much free space left
If 7.844 gig is all that is left you will not have enough to run VIsta

 

I have plenty of room.. I have like 30 gb left

 

Sorry at the present time I don't know what the answer is
and the Amber Nectar is calling me.
I will try to get info later but I'm sure in the Meantime
someone with more knowledge than me will come along and try to solve your problem

 

Firstly, defragment your XP install.
Then try again to resize its partition so as to have enough (eg 9-10GB) of space for vista.

I suggest using the acronis bootable media and use the bootable disk director.

Reboot on the vista dvd. When the vista partitioner comes, select the new empy space and create the partition using that space.

Install Vista on that new partition.

Your XP should then be automatically added to vista's new bootmanager ("Legacy Windows" or something like that).

I you want OS Selector to take care of Vista but can't make it work, I suggest the little guide I gave.

Note: personally I hide the Win2000/XP/2K3 partition(s) before installing Vista (or any other WindowsNT-type os); it's up to you.

 

gzus2441:

To add to nuljet's advice, here are specific directions for creating free space for your Vista installation. Before starting Disk Director, defragment your C: drive so that there are no file fragments left at the end of the disk where you want to create free space.

Then start Disk Director and right-click on your C: partition. (I am assuming here that you only have one partition on your drive. If not, please describe what you have). After right-clicking on the partition choose "Resize". A graphic image that represents your partition will appear. Move your mouse to the extreme right-hand end of the partition area until the mouse cursor changes into a || symbol. Click and drag the slider to the left to create free space at the end of your C: partition. When you have created the desired amount of free space, click the "OK" button.

Click on the checkered flag to commit. You may be asked to reboot. If so, re-start Disk Director after rebooting and verify that the free space was created properly.

Now you can proceed with installing Vista into the newly-created free space.

 

I just defragmented my hard drive but when I run my disk director suite I can't right click the c drive to resize it

 

In windows explorer ""My Computer" what size does it say
your "C" drive is and what is the free space.

Does this tally up with what DD is showing.

As kOlo said if you right click on the drive a tab should appear with
a number of options (Copy, Move, Resize etc.etc.)
If this is not the case maybe you have a bad installation and a
reinstall may cure it

 

What other software would you reccommend that does the same thing this program does

 

If another program does the same thing, then it wouldn't perform better, would it.

Did you try my suggestion of using the acronis bootable media? You'd run DD from it, and it might cooperate.

Consult the manual for how to create that bootable cd and how to use it.

 

No I mean whats another program that makes partitionlike the norton magic partition or whatever.. what other type of product would you recommend? I obviosuly don't want a program thats not gonna work

 

I did understand your question.
The point is that perhaps the problem is elsewhere: eg maybe there's an unmovable file near the end of the partition (eg swapfile or folders) which defragmentation wouldn't move. Check with your defragmening software if there's any files near the end -- if there are and the defragmentation doesn't move them, then using another partitioning software wouldn't help.
So you'll have to investigate a little more, and if this is the real problem, then do a boot-time defragmentation.

But if the road is clear and you have nothing in the last gigbytes of that partition, maybe try the suggestion I made before about using DD on the bootable CD: maybe DD doesn't like to resize a partition on which it is currently running... which would make sense.

 

After you get the empty space use XP to format the partition or do it during the Vista install. Read this for what to do http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=489975 -I have NOT been able to install Vista on a partition that was formatted by DD.