{"id":3541,"date":"2008-05-24T20:14:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-24T20:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riguy.azurewebsites.net\/?p=3541"},"modified":"2015-01-03T21:13:13","modified_gmt":"2015-01-04T05:13:13","slug":"partitioning-a-vista-hard-drive-in-preparation-for-a-dual-boot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riguy.com\/?p=3541","title":{"rendered":"Partitioning a Vista Hard Drive in Preparation for a Dual Boot"},"content":{"rendered":"

I decided to set up a dual boot with Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Server 2008. Boy, was I shocked<\/strong> at how EASY<\/em><\/strong> this was. It was so easy, I started looking for things to do with all my spare time ;> I am not kidding. I am used to hours, days even months of utter frustration with technical matters like this – either with Windows dual boots or Windows\/Linux dual boots.
\nI will maybe post more in the future re: the Windows Server 2008 install.<\/p>\n

Well deserved plug for eMachines<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

I did this disk partitioning, or volume extending, on a new killer PC from eMachines. My initial take on this AMD Athlon \/64 bit\/ 320 Gigabyte SATA monster (and I mean that with love and respect ;>), is that it is AWESOME. Maybe it is too early too get excited, but this T5254, which cost only $400 at Best Buy is the deal of the century from the comparisons I have done.<\/p>\n

My initial concern was the hard drive. In order to dual boot 2 operating systems, you either need 2 hard drives or 1 hard drive that is partitioned or split into 2 parts. Here is what I did. I like to use the Computer Management tool because it has all sorts of useful tools available when you open it. In this case I want to work on the “Storage” and Disk Management. So, I right-click the Computer icon and select Manage. In fact I use Computer Management so often, I right clicked it within the Start menu and selected “Show on Desktop” so it is more readily available. Anyway, after opening this tool, I selected Disk Management and my volumes and Disks are shown. These days there are frequently many disks that show up here, but they are usually for removable cards, i.e. SD\/MMC etc. You should also see a CD or DVD ROM drive referenced.<\/p>\n

The disk I was interested in was Disk 0. But really, I need to go no further than the top part under Volume<\/strong>. There most people would see this: (C):, Simple, Basic, NTFS (for Vista), or something very similar. Simply right click the C: volume and select “Extend Volume”. You will be prompted for the desired size. I cut my 300+ GB monster SATA right in half and the process was on its way. That is it!<\/p>\n

After the extension or resize, the partition can also be deleted or even shrunk. Also, note that the new volume will get a drive letter assigned. Generally speaking, as the C:drive is already used and as most people have a CD\/DVD ROM drive with D:assigned, and finally, most PCs these days have a smallish Recovery type of disk (purpose: emergency reinstall of original OS), etc etc, the letter should be around the F: range or so. Regardless, the new volume should be ‘unallocated’, which means it is ready to be formatted. In my case, I booted off the Windows Server 2008 disk and installed this OS right onto the new unallocated volume.<\/p>\n

As always, proceed with caution, and be sure not to install the second OS on the C: drive: that would be bad<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I decided to set up a dual boot with Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Server 2008. Boy, was I shocked at how EASY this was. It was so easy, I started looking for things to do with all my spare time ;> I am not kidding. I am used to hours, days even months … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Partitioning a Vista Hard Drive in Preparation for a Dual Boot”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3541"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/riguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5811,"href":"https:\/\/riguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3541\/revisions\/5811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}