Trying to Dual-boot Win 7

Ok guys. Here we go:

I am trying to dual-boot Windows 7 on my XPS M1530 which is currently running Vista Ultimate - BUT I stumbled upon a problem. As I understand it, Vista will only allow you to have 4 partitions and magically I have 4 already. I reformatted the laptop right after purchasing and no longer have the recovery drive. Here is what Vista says I have:

(1) EISA Configuration - 47mb
(2) C: (Vista) - 179gb
(3) Primary Partition - 4.25gb
(4) Primary Partition - 3gb

and also I have 8mb of free space that won't seem to let me do anything with. I would like to delete one of the last 2 partitions and make a new 1 by resizing the Vista partition a little to free up space. I do have MediaDirect and am not sure which partition it is on. Help me?

 

(1) is your diagnostics partition.

I don't know how you got (3) and (4) set up there, but the easiest way to determine which one is MD, is as follows:

Start * Run * diskmgmt.msc * <<ENTER>>
I presume you don't have drive letters assigned for either one. You should anyways NOT have a drive letter assigned to the MD one, but if you select the properties on each partition, see if Windows mentions which one is a special-type partition when you click on the properties for each partition.

Otherwise, boot the Windows 7 DVD. Before you actually commit to setup, there is a list of partitions. Whichever of (3) or (4) is the MD partition, Windows Setup should list its partition type as OEM reserved. That's your clue (and my limited experience with my own MD partition) that the indicated partition is the MD, and the other one is not.

 

Oh, you might want to backup all partitions before mucking around, unless, of course, you know one is MD, in which case you can leave that one.

 

Hmm.. the Disk Management utility wont allow me to view the properties of either partition. All I can select is Delete Partition and Help. I will try booting up the Win 7 DVD and seeing if it will tell me.

 

Ok. So got Win 7 DVD up and it had the 3 GB partition labeled as MEDIADIRECT, so that answers that question. I deleted the 4.25 GB partition and it combined with the random 8 MB of free space. Now I have the following:

(1) EISA Configuration - 47mb
(2) C: (Vista) - 179gb
(3) MediaDirect - 3gb
4.26 GB Free space

I can't get my Vista partition to resize. Everytime I try to resize it using the Disk Management utility it thinks for a long while like it is working and then gives me an error saying "Access Denied". I need to shrink the Vista partition and combine it with the Free space to make a new partition for Win 7. Any suggestions?