Partition Problems

jjoe90

I am trying to install XP and 7 onto a Virutal PC, I have given the computer 30Gb, as they should both fit on there and there isn't going to be any programs installed.

I stupidly gave the XP install of the 30gb, Is there anyway to split up the basic 30gb?
say 15gb each, when I go into disk management there seems to be no option to split up the drive.

Do I just start again and create two 15 gb drives.

NightShade03

It is possible to shrink the current partition and free up some extra space. Windows XP can't do this with built in tools however. Check out:

How to work with partitions in Windows Vista / XP when Disk Management doesn’t work | Vista Rewired

It has the diskpart tool that comes with Vista/Win7 which you can download for XP. It also has a guide on how to shrink the partition to make more room. Although you might already be aware shrinking partitions can cause data loss so make sure there is nothing on the machine that is critical.

Devilsbane

If it is a fresh install, just reformat and reinstall both. XP doesn't support decreasing volume sizes. Vista does and I believe 7 does as well.

There are 3rd party tools that can use it, but I don't know any off of the top of my head.

Out of curiosity, why are you creating a dual booted vm? Why not just make 2 separate ones?

EDIT:
Also, I think you could just add another disk to your VM and install 7 on there. This would be the easiest workaround, but you will be using some more space on your host machine.

Of course this shouldn't be aproblem since I think VPC doesn't allocate the space on your physical hard disk until it needs to. Ex. A freshly installed xp with a 100GB virtual HDD will only take up 5GB of actual space. Until you start saving more and then need that 100GB.

Lamini

Acronis disk director suite can create partitions. how it differs from others is that it does NOT require unallocated space, it will make it. It has saved me before when an old legacy system (server 2003) required a separate partition, and since you couldnt do it in server 2003 itself.

if it does it on server 2003, Im almost positive it could do it in XP