So I want to dual boot 7/8, and I have a question.

I only want to do this to try out 8, dad got me a physical copy for Christmas, but knowing what 8 was kept me from even opening it. ( I know i'm a but he knows that new OSs can be a pain in the )

So anyway, my setup is a 256GB SSD w 7 64 on it, and a separate 750 GB HDD with all my non-essential programs, movies and games on it.

Both are about half way full.

That's my setup, my question is can I put 8 on the 750GB HDD WITHOUT having to delete anything on it?

Cheers!

 

Shrink your existing partition on the HDD and create a new one for Windows 8 using the space you just freed up. Install Windows 8 to that partition and you're good to go.

 

Oh ok, so basically what I'm doing is limiting the available space and making new for 8 on the hdd. So do I just use diskmgmt.msc?

 

gamers setup: 4 partitions on SSD, system reserved, win 7(40Gb), win8(40Gb), then steam and origin games library partition(120Gb), steam and origin games are capable of running on both systems with one installation, but as the person above says, just shrink the partitions so unallocated space are present for windows setup, just wonder how the bot record will be like though, probably written on the SSD which means you cannot boot your computer with just the HDD

make sure you check if there is an option of formatting the whole disk, the installation instructions might have checked it automatically so becareful

 

So what you're saying is that If i put 8 on the hdd the boot sequence won't let me do the dual boot?

oh i definitely will.

 

If you put one OS on one drive, and the other OS on the secondary drive, you will not be presented with a "select OS" prompt prior to loading Windows. The POST will default to the first boot option in the boot priority. You can still access your secondary drive/OS, but you'll need to either change the boot device priority, or open the quick boot device menu during POST and select your drive.

 

I had a nightmare before when installing dual boot on one SSD, windows 7 installed fine with the boot sector in the SSD but the windows 8 did not write its boot menu into windows 7's system reserved partition but instead on my 1Tb HDD which I was too lazy to disconnect, took me ages on the internet just to find out the correct command on CMD to rebuild it onto the system reserved partition, but somehow now it seems to read the hidden partition and write the dual boot option onto it just fine..... still wondering what went wrong back then tho

 

Anyway... this is my current problem, i'm trying to shrink it and give win 8 about 30gb. I have 140 free, but when i go to type in 30,000mb it greys out the shrink button... what do



why does it only allow me to shrink 312 mb???

 

3rd party partition manager? Easeus Partition Master Free Edition - CNET Download.com, also check your page file settings and hibernation settings (cmd(admin): powercfg -h off) windows device manager shrink is somehow buggy, at least you can enter the shrink page lol I can't even start it

 

Hmm, actually, I got the boot choice and I got my OS on two different drives, I was asked which one to boot to in priority when I installed Windows 8. Also worked like with the preview on my N50 when I installed windows 8 on a separate partition. You will need to set the drive to boot to the Win 8 drive by default if you do want it to work that was if I recall correctly.

If you are having problems shrinking a partition, defrag it and see what happens.

 

see i can'd defrag because it's an ssd

edit: just checked my regular hdd and its shrink options are normal... da faq

edit edit: any 3rd party software to help me out with this?

 

That's good to know. I recall it being an issue - especially with XP and Vista/7 dual drive, dual booting, due to XP having no native sATA support - and the only workaround being third party software (such as EasyBCD).

Well there you go, OP. If you're still having issues, see if EasyBCD will work.

 

I got version 2.2 .... but i'm not seeing anything about windows 8, or volume shrinking.. basically i just can't find a guide for this and am thoroughly confused.

 

Windows 8 is the first Windows that is actually dual boot friendly, I don't remember how exactly the process goes, but you will be ale to set the dual boot options when installing Windows 8 at some point during the installation process. I think it occurs right before your first boot into Windows 8, but I could be wrong.

This is for the consumer preview: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...s-i-dont/fcb3f161-b009-4996-a040-cf81af19a5fa, but the process is the same for the release version, I remember that much.

 

actually i just ended up using gparted to take 30gb from my main ssd. so I guess we'll see how well this works. thanks for the help though.

edit: so i took that free 30gb and made a new volume but it wants me to format it.. i said no.. will i still be able to put 8 on it?

 

It just wants a file system. You should be able to format it during Windows 8 setup, though I don't know what to make of it being RAW.

 

Why don't boot it from virtual machine . This would save you a lot of hassle and without worrying about partitioning your drive . You only need VM, try virtualbox , the best and free.

 

i did a vm with osx just to look around, was very clunky/buggy, i don't know if it was just that bad impression or what..


UPDATE EDIT:

thanks for all your help guise, i just ended up screwing around in 8 for like 20 minutes... not my cup of tea. i just deleted the volume and put the space back into it's original spot.

 

There's always a performance loss associate with a VM though and not everyone is willing to make that sacrifice. If it's just to mess around with it sure, but, I prefer a dual boot setup if I am going to use both OS extensively depending on the situation and I don't need to switch from one to another often.