required creating dual boot

Ok guys thx for all of the help and advice you gave me in my previous post now I'll give you the current configaration of my machine and see if one of you can give me an idiots guide to creating a partition and installing vista to that partition (without losing any of my current setup/files/progs etc etc)
win XP Pro on C drive all setup and working fine on a 300gb HDD with 265 GB freespace 2gb Ram Athlon 64 dualcore 3800+

T5--
1) Do you have the HD already partitioned into anything other than C:\ Do you have C:\50GB and D:\ or whichever drive letter the other 250GB?
If so just boot up XP and insert your DVD and run setup from XP and you'll get the option to direct to your other presummably 250GB partition.
On the previous thread you were told clearly to get 3rd party software to get this done. You can put Vista on the remaining space and then if you decide to make partitions out of that, you will need 3rd party as you were told by Mark Vandenberg in order not to lose what is on C:\ and I'll call your remaing space D:\ since you didn't name it.
2) You can't use diskpart from cmd or diskmgmt.msc from the run box to make a partition with fault tolerance, i.e. you need 3rd party software like Symantec's Partition Magic to make a partition and retain your XP Pro on C:\ unless you've already partitioned when you installed XP Pro and I'm guessing with the 265 GB of the 300GB HD left you haven't.
3) On the previous thread Richard Urban, Colin, I and others told you how to do this. Richard Urban's post was crystal clear and to the point. Mark told you that you needed 3rd party software. Why is this cycle repeating?
Richard Urban posted:
Vista setup does not create anything. It gets installed where YOU tell it to install to.
Prepare before you install. Use a third party program, such as Partition Magic 8.01 (or later) to shrink your current partition. You will need 20 gig of free space to create another primary partition used for the Vista install. Then create the new partition.
Getting another hard drive would be even better. Use it exclusively for your Vista experiment.
During setup, be certain to direct the installer to the correct drive/partition.
I posted: After you burn the Iso, while you are in XP, the setup for Vista will pop up on your screen. You get the chance to direct to the partition you want.
You can make partitions with Diskmanager; but it is not fault tolerant and so if you want to extend them or make new ones without losing things you can 1) Backup 2) Use 3rd party.
I don't think you'll be successful in getting MSFT to build it in. It'd be great and you can try.
CH

"T5" wrote in message

Ok guys thx for all of the help and advice you gave me in my previous post now I'll give you the current configaration of my machine and see if one of you can give me an idiots guide to creating a partition and installing vista to that partition (without losing any of my current setup/files/progs etc etc)
win XP Pro on C drive all setup and working fine on a 300gb HDD with 265 GB freespace 2gb Ram Athlon 64 dualcore 3800+

Not sure what help is required that we didn't give you already on the first thread you started.
Correction: I assume you have C:\ 15GB with XP Pro and the other space is 265GB not 250GB as I typed in the first sentence. Put the DVD in after you boot to XP Pro on C:\ and setup will pop up on your XP desktop. Run the Vista setup from there and it will retain whatever drive letter you have assigned the other space.
Any further partitioning will have to be done by 3rd party like PM or Acronis if you want to retain what you have while you parcel up that 265 GB.
CH
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message

T5--
1) Do you have the HD already partitioned into anything other than C:\ Do you have C:\50GB and D:\ or whichever drive letter the other 250GB?
If so just boot up XP and insert your DVD and run setup from XP and you'll get the option to direct to your other presummably 250GB partition.
On the previous thread you were told clearly to get 3rd party software to get this done. You can put Vista on the remaining space and then if you decide to make partitions out of that, you will need 3rd party as you were told by Mark Vandenberg in order not to lose what is on C:\ and I'll call your remaing space D:\ since you didn't name it.
2) You can't use diskpart from cmd or diskmgmt.msc from the run box to make a partition with fault tolerance, i.e. you need 3rd party software like Symantec's Partition Magic to make a partition and retain your XP Pro on C:\ unless you've already partitioned when you installed XP Pro and I'm guessing with the 265 GB of the 300GB HD left you haven't.
3) On the previous thread Richard Urban, Colin, I and others told you how to do this. Richard Urban's post was crystal clear and to the point. Mark told you that you needed 3rd party software. Why is this cycle repeating?
Richard Urban posted:
Vista setup does not create anything. It gets installed where YOU tell it to install to.
Prepare before you install. Use a third party program, such as Partition Magic 8.01 (or later) to shrink your current partition. You will need 20 gig of free space to create another primary partition used for the Vista install. Then create the new partition.
Getting another hard drive would be even better. Use it exclusively for your Vista experiment.
During setup, be certain to direct the installer to the correct drive/partition.
I posted: After you burn the Iso, while you are in XP, the setup for Vista will pop up on your screen. You get the chance to direct to the partition you want.
You can make partitions with Diskmanager; but it is not fault tolerant and so if you want to extend them or make new ones without losing things you can 1) Backup 2) Use 3rd party.
I don't think you'll be successful in getting MSFT to build it in. It'd be great and you can try.
CH

"T5" wrote in message Ok guys thx for all of the help and advice you gave me in my previous post now I'll give you the current configaration of my machine and see if one of you can give me an idiots guide to creating a partition and installing vista to that partition (without losing any of my current setup/files/progs etc etc)
win XP Pro on C drive all setup and working fine on a 300gb HDD with 265 GB freespace 2gb Ram Athlon 64 dualcore 3800+

thx Chad, but as you yourself have acknowledged through your correction it is not as crystal clear as you first said. It appears that vista beta installs itself alongside xp as when I boot after I have installed vista it gives me the option to boot into vista or to another os (which I presume is xp pro although I havent tried this yet) is this correct? I do know that when I first installed vista and booted to the desktop the old windows was in a folder called windows.old "Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message

Not sure what help is required that we didn't give you already on the first thread you started.
Correction: I assume you have C:\ 15GB with XP Pro and the other space is 265GB not 250GB as I typed in the first sentence. Put the DVD in after you boot to XP Pro on C:\ and setup will pop up on your XP desktop. Run the Vista setup from there and it will retain whatever drive letter you have assigned the other space.
Any further partitioning will have to be done by 3rd party like PM or Acronis if you want to retain what you have while you parcel up that 265 GB.
CH
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message T5--
1) Do you have the HD already partitioned into anything other than C:\ Do you have C:\50GB and D:\ or whichever drive letter the other 250GB?
If so just boot up XP and insert your DVD and run setup from XP and you'll get the option to direct to your other presummably 250GB partition.
On the previous thread you were told clearly to get 3rd party software to get this done. You can put Vista on the remaining space and then if you decide to make partitions out of that, you will need 3rd party as you were told by Mark Vandenberg in order not to lose what is on C:\ and I'll call your remaing space D:\ since you didn't name it.
2) You can't use diskpart from cmd or diskmgmt.msc from the run box to make a partition with fault tolerance, i.e. you need 3rd party software like Symantec's Partition Magic to make a partition and retain your XP Pro on C:\ unless you've already partitioned when you installed XP Pro and I'm guessing with the 265 GB of the 300GB HD left you haven't.
3) On the previous thread Richard Urban, Colin, I and others told you how to do this. Richard Urban's post was crystal clear and to the point. Mark told you that you needed 3rd party software. Why is this cycle repeating?
Richard Urban posted:
Vista setup does not create anything. It gets installed where YOU tell it to install to.
Prepare before you install. Use a third party program, such as Partition Magic 8.01 (or later) to shrink your current partition. You will need 20 gig of free space to create another primary partition used for the Vista install. Then create the new partition.
Getting another hard drive would be even better. Use it exclusively for your Vista experiment.
During setup, be certain to direct the installer to the correct drive/partition.
I posted: After you burn the Iso, while you are in XP, the setup for Vista will pop up on your screen. You get the chance to direct to the partition you want.
You can make partitions with Diskmanager; but it is not fault tolerant and so if you want to extend them or make new ones without losing things you can 1) Backup 2) Use 3rd party.
I don't think you'll be successful in getting MSFT to build it in. It'd be great and you can try.
CH

"T5" wrote in message Ok guys thx for all of the help and advice you gave me in my previous post now I'll give you the current configaration of my machine and see if one of you can give me an idiots guide to creating a partition and installing vista to that partition (without losing any of my current setup/files/progs etc etc)
win XP Pro on C drive all setup and working fine on a 300gb HDD with 265 GB freespace 2gb Ram Athlon 64 dualcore 3800+

The only thing the correction pointed out is that I didn't type 265GB and typed 250GB by mistake as to what you have left over. You learn to need to read what we give you the first time and do it.
Then if you have more questions ask them. Say explicitly what you infer that you have two partitions right now--one that is 15 GB and one that is 265GB. Whatever they are:
1) Boot into XP. 2) Insert the Vista DVD. 3) Run setup that will appear on your XP desktop. 4) It will ask you where you want Vista and you tell it as Richard said and I said where you want it--that partition that isn't XP whatever letter it is --I called it D but whatever it is that's where Vista goes.
If now you want to make further "divisions" --partitions of that big other space, you are going to have to get 3rd party software in order not to lose what is on the drive.
Do you have any further specific questions? If not as Nike says finally "Just Do It."
Good luck,
CH
"T5" wrote in message

thx Chad, but as you yourself have acknowledged through your correction it is not as crystal clear as you first said. It appears that vista beta installs itself alongside xp as when I boot after I have installed vista it gives me the option to boot into vista or to another os (which I presume is xp pro although I havent tried this yet) is this correct? I do know that when I first installed vista and booted to the desktop the old windows was in a folder called windows.old "Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message Not sure what help is required that we didn't give you already on the first thread you started.
Correction: I assume you have C:\ 15GB with XP Pro and the other space is 265GB not 250GB as I typed in the first sentence. Put the DVD in after you boot to XP Pro on C:\ and setup will pop up on your XP desktop. Run the Vista setup from there and it will retain whatever drive letter you have assigned the other space.
Any further partitioning will have to be done by 3rd party like PM or Acronis if you want to retain what you have while you parcel up that 265 GB.
CH
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message T5--
1) Do you have the HD already partitioned into anything other than C:\ Do you have C:\50GB and D:\ or whichever drive letter the other 250GB?
If so just boot up XP and insert your DVD and run setup from XP and you'll get the option to direct to your other presummably 250GB partition.
On the previous thread you were told clearly to get 3rd party software to get this done. You can put Vista on the remaining space and then if you decide to make partitions out of that, you will need 3rd party as you were told by Mark Vandenberg in order not to lose what is on C:\ and I'll call your remaing space D:\ since you didn't name it.
2) You can't use diskpart from cmd or diskmgmt.msc from the run box to make a partition with fault tolerance, i.e. you need 3rd party software like Symantec's Partition Magic to make a partition and retain your XP Pro on C:\ unless you've already partitioned when you installed XP Pro and I'm guessing with the 265 GB of the 300GB HD left you haven't.
3) On the previous thread Richard Urban, Colin, I and others told you how to do this. Richard Urban's post was crystal clear and to the point. Mark told you that you needed 3rd party software. Why is this cycle repeating?
Richard Urban posted:
Vista setup does not create anything. It gets installed where YOU tell it to install to.
Prepare before you install. Use a third party program, such as Partition Magic 8.01 (or later) to shrink your current partition. You will need 20 gig of free space to create another primary partition used for the Vista install. Then create the new partition.
Getting another hard drive would be even better. Use it exclusively for your Vista experiment.
During setup, be certain to direct the installer to the correct drive/partition.
I posted: After you burn the Iso, while you are in XP, the setup for Vista will pop up on your screen. You get the chance to direct to the partition you want.
You can make partitions with Diskmanager; but it is not fault tolerant and so if you want to extend them or make new ones without losing things you can 1) Backup 2) Use 3rd party.
I don't think you'll be successful in getting MSFT to build it in. It'd be great and you can try.
CH

"T5" wrote in message Ok guys thx for all of the help and advice you gave me in my previous post now I'll give you the current configaration of my machine and see if one of you can give me an idiots guide to creating a partition and installing vista to that partition (without losing any of my current setup/files/progs etc etc)
win XP Pro on C drive all setup and working fine on a 300gb HDD with 265 GB freespace 2gb Ram Athlon 64 dualcore 3800+

It would appear he is doing an upgrade of his XP or he wouldn't have a .old file. At least I did when I upgraded and didn't when I did a clean install.
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message

The only thing the correction pointed out is that I didn't type 265GB and typed 250GB by mistake as to what you have left over. You learn to need to read what we give you the first time and do it.
Then if you have more questions ask them. Say explicitly what you infer that you have two partitions right now--one that is 15 GB and one that is 265GB. Whatever they are:
1) Boot into XP. 2) Insert the Vista DVD. 3) Run setup that will appear on your XP desktop. 4) It will ask you where you want Vista and you tell it as Richard said and I said where you want it--that partition that isn't XP whatever letter it is --I called it D but whatever it is that's where Vista goes.
If now you want to make further "divisions" --partitions of that big other space, you are going to have to get 3rd party software in order not to lose what is on the drive.
Do you have any further specific questions? If not as Nike says finally "Just Do It."
Good luck,
CH
"T5" wrote in message thx Chad, but as you yourself have acknowledged through your correction it is not as crystal clear as you first said. It appears that vista beta installs itself alongside xp as when I boot after I have installed vista it gives me the option to boot into vista or to another os (which I presume is xp pro although I havent tried this yet) is this correct? I do know that when I first installed vista and booted to the desktop the old windows was in a folder called windows.old "Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message Not sure what help is required that we didn't give you already on the first thread you started.
Correction: I assume you have C:\ 15GB with XP Pro and the other space is 265GB not 250GB as I typed in the first sentence. Put the DVD in after you boot to XP Pro on C:\ and setup will pop up on your XP desktop. Run the Vista setup from there and it will retain whatever drive letter you have assigned the other space.
Any further partitioning will have to be done by 3rd party like PM or Acronis if you want to retain what you have while you parcel up that 265 GB.
CH
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message T5--
1) Do you have the HD already partitioned into anything other than C:\ Do you have C:\50GB and D:\ or whichever drive letter the other 250GB?
If so just boot up XP and insert your DVD and run setup from XP and you'll get the option to direct to your other presummably 250GB partition.
On the previous thread you were told clearly to get 3rd party software to get this done. You can put Vista on the remaining space and then if you decide to make partitions out of that, you will need 3rd party as you were told by Mark Vandenberg in order not to lose what is on C:\ and I'll call your remaing space D:\ since you didn't name it.
2) You can't use diskpart from cmd or diskmgmt.msc from the run box to make a partition with fault tolerance, i.e. you need 3rd party software like Symantec's Partition Magic to make a partition and retain your XP Pro on C:\ unless you've already partitioned when you installed XP Pro and I'm guessing with the 265 GB of the 300GB HD left you haven't.
3) On the previous thread Richard Urban, Colin, I and others told you how to do this. Richard Urban's post was crystal clear and to the point. Mark told you that you needed 3rd party software. Why is this cycle repeating?
Richard Urban posted:
Vista setup does not create anything. It gets installed where YOU tell it to install to.
Prepare before you install. Use a third party program, such as Partition Magic 8.01 (or later) to shrink your current partition. You will need 20 gig of free space to create another primary partition used for the Vista install. Then create the new partition.
Getting another hard drive would be even better. Use it exclusively for your Vista experiment.
During setup, be certain to direct the installer to the correct drive/partition.
I posted: After you burn the Iso, while you are in XP, the setup for Vista will pop up on your screen. You get the chance to direct to the partition you want.
You can make partitions with Diskmanager; but it is not fault tolerant and so if you want to extend them or make new ones without losing things you can 1) Backup 2) Use 3rd party.
I don't think you'll be successful in getting MSFT to build it in. It'd be great and you can try.
CH

"T5" wrote in message Ok guys thx for all of the help and advice you gave me in my previous post now I'll give you the current configaration of my machine and see if one of you can give me an idiots guide to creating a partition and installing vista to that partition (without losing any of my current setup/files/progs etc etc)
win XP Pro on C drive all setup and working fine on a 300gb HDD with 265 GB freespace 2gb Ram Athlon 64 dualcore 3800+

Thanks John, Chad is getting really angry with me why? You seem to realise that I have xp installed and no seperate partition just a c drive so why is it that Chad seems to think that I have another partition D, E or whatever? I have never inferred that I have anything other than a C drive with win xp pro installed so why is he getting so tetchy? Ok I am not an expert but I am not stupid either. I said that I have a 300gb hdd with 265gb remaining after xp, office pro etc etc is installed so it is all on c drive, there is no D drive is that clear enough? "John Barnes" wrote in message

It would appear he is doing an upgrade of his XP or he wouldn't have a .old file. At least I did when I upgraded and didn't when I did a clean install.
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message The only thing the correction pointed out is that I didn't type 265GB and typed 250GB by mistake as to what you have left over. You learn to need to read what we give you the first time and do it.
Then if you have more questions ask them. Say explicitly what you infer that you have two partitions right now--one that is 15 GB and one that is 265GB. Whatever they are:
1) Boot into XP. 2) Insert the Vista DVD. 3) Run setup that will appear on your XP desktop. 4) It will ask you where you want Vista and you tell it as Richard said and I said where you want it--that partition that isn't XP whatever letter it is --I called it D but whatever it is that's where Vista goes.
If now you want to make further "divisions" --partitions of that big other space, you are going to have to get 3rd party software in order not to lose what is on the drive.
Do you have any further specific questions? If not as Nike says finally "Just Do It."
Good luck,
CH
"T5" wrote in message thx Chad, but as you yourself have acknowledged through your correction it is not as crystal clear as you first said. It appears that vista beta installs itself alongside xp as when I boot after I have installed vista it gives me the option to boot into vista or to another os (which I presume is xp pro although I havent tried this yet) is this correct? I do know that when I first installed vista and booted to the desktop the old windows was in a folder called windows.old "Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message Not sure what help is required that we didn't give you already on the first thread you started.
Correction: I assume you have C:\ 15GB with XP Pro and the other space is 265GB not 250GB as I typed in the first sentence. Put the DVD in after you boot to XP Pro on C:\ and setup will pop up on your XP desktop. Run the Vista setup from there and it will retain whatever drive letter you have assigned the other space.
Any further partitioning will have to be done by 3rd party like PM or Acronis if you want to retain what you have while you parcel up that 265 GB.
CH
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message T5--
1) Do you have the HD already partitioned into anything other than C:\ Do you have C:\50GB and D:\ or whichever drive letter the other 250GB?
If so just boot up XP and insert your DVD and run setup from XP and you'll get the option to direct to your other presummably 250GB partition.
On the previous thread you were told clearly to get 3rd party software to get this done. You can put Vista on the remaining space and then if you decide to make partitions out of that, you will need 3rd party as you were told by Mark Vandenberg in order not to lose what is on C:\ and I'll call your remaing space D:\ since you didn't name it.
2) You can't use diskpart from cmd or diskmgmt.msc from the run box to make a partition with fault tolerance, i.e. you need 3rd party software like Symantec's Partition Magic to make a partition and retain your XP Pro on C:\ unless you've already partitioned when you installed XP Pro and I'm guessing with the 265 GB of the 300GB HD left you haven't.
3) On the previous thread Richard Urban, Colin, I and others told you how to do this. Richard Urban's post was crystal clear and to the point. Mark told you that you needed 3rd party software. Why is this cycle repeating?
Richard Urban posted:
Vista setup does not create anything. It gets installed where YOU tell it to install to.
Prepare before you install. Use a third party program, such as Partition Magic 8.01 (or later) to shrink your current partition. You will need 20 gig of free space to create another primary partition used for the Vista install. Then create the new partition.
Getting another hard drive would be even better. Use it exclusively for your Vista experiment.
During setup, be certain to direct the installer to the correct drive/partition.
I posted: After you burn the Iso, while you are in XP, the setup for Vista will pop up on your screen. You get the chance to direct to the partition you want.
You can make partitions with Diskmanager; but it is not fault tolerant and so if you want to extend them or make new ones without losing things you can 1) Backup 2) Use 3rd party.
I don't think you'll be successful in getting MSFT to build it in. It'd be great and you can try.
CH

"T5" wrote in message Ok guys thx for all of the help and advice you gave me in my previous post now I'll give you the current configaration of my machine and see if one of you can give me an idiots guide to creating a partition and installing vista to that partition (without losing any of my current setup/files/progs etc etc)
win XP Pro on C drive all setup and working fine on a 300gb HDD with 265 GB freespace 2gb Ram Athlon 64 dualcore 3800+

No, windows.old means that he did NOT do an upgrade. It means he did a custom (clean) installation to the same partition as his old operating system and did not format the partition.
"John Barnes" wrote in message

It would appear he is doing an upgrade of his XP or he wouldn't have a .old file. At least I did when I upgraded and didn't when I did a clean install.
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message The only thing the correction pointed out is that I didn't type 265GB and typed 250GB by mistake as to what you have left over. You learn to need to read what we give you the first time and do it.
Then if you have more questions ask them. Say explicitly what you infer that you have two partitions right now--one that is 15 GB and one that is 265GB. Whatever they are:
1) Boot into XP. 2) Insert the Vista DVD. 3) Run setup that will appear on your XP desktop. 4) It will ask you where you want Vista and you tell it as Richard said and I said where you want it--that partition that isn't XP whatever letter it is --I called it D but whatever it is that's where Vista goes.
If now you want to make further "divisions" --partitions of that big other space, you are going to have to get 3rd party software in order not to lose what is on the drive.
Do you have any further specific questions? If not as Nike says finally "Just Do It."
Good luck,
CH
"T5" wrote in message thx Chad, but as you yourself have acknowledged through your correction it is not as crystal clear as you first said. It appears that vista beta installs itself alongside xp as when I boot after I have installed vista it gives me the option to boot into vista or to another os (which I presume is xp pro although I havent tried this yet) is this correct? I do know that when I first installed vista and booted to the desktop the old windows was in a folder called windows.old "Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message Not sure what help is required that we didn't give you already on the first thread you started.
Correction: I assume you have C:\ 15GB with XP Pro and the other space is 265GB not 250GB as I typed in the first sentence. Put the DVD in after you boot to XP Pro on C:\ and setup will pop up on your XP desktop. Run the Vista setup from there and it will retain whatever drive letter you have assigned the other space.
Any further partitioning will have to be done by 3rd party like PM or Acronis if you want to retain what you have while you parcel up that 265 GB.
CH
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message T5--
1) Do you have the HD already partitioned into anything other than C:\ Do you have C:\50GB and D:\ or whichever drive letter the other 250GB?
If so just boot up XP and insert your DVD and run setup from XP and you'll get the option to direct to your other presummably 250GB partition.
On the previous thread you were told clearly to get 3rd party software to get this done. You can put Vista on the remaining space and then if you decide to make partitions out of that, you will need 3rd party as you were told by Mark Vandenberg in order not to lose what is on C:\ and I'll call your remaing space D:\ since you didn't name it.
2) You can't use diskpart from cmd or diskmgmt.msc from the run box to make a partition with fault tolerance, i.e. you need 3rd party software like Symantec's Partition Magic to make a partition and retain your XP Pro on C:\ unless you've already partitioned when you installed XP Pro and I'm guessing with the 265 GB of the 300GB HD left you haven't.
3) On the previous thread Richard Urban, Colin, I and others told you how to do this. Richard Urban's post was crystal clear and to the point. Mark told you that you needed 3rd party software. Why is this cycle repeating?
Richard Urban posted:
Vista setup does not create anything. It gets installed where YOU tell it to install to.
Prepare before you install. Use a third party program, such as Partition Magic 8.01 (or later) to shrink your current partition. You will need 20 gig of free space to create another primary partition used for the Vista install. Then create the new partition.
Getting another hard drive would be even better. Use it exclusively for your Vista experiment.
During setup, be certain to direct the installer to the correct drive/partition.
I posted: After you burn the Iso, while you are in XP, the setup for Vista will pop up on your screen. You get the chance to direct to the partition you want.
You can make partitions with Diskmanager; but it is not fault tolerant and so if you want to extend them or make new ones without losing things you can 1) Backup 2) Use 3rd party.
I don't think you'll be successful in getting MSFT to build it in. It'd be great and you can try.
CH

"T5" wrote in message Ok guys thx for all of the help and advice you gave me in my previous post now I'll give you the current configaration of my machine and see if one of you can give me an idiots guide to creating a partition and installing vista to that partition (without losing any of my current setup/files/progs etc etc)
win XP Pro on C drive all setup and working fine on a 300gb HDD with 265 GB freespace 2gb Ram Athlon 64 dualcore 3800+

I stand corrected.
"Colin Barnhorst" wrote in message

No, windows.old means that he did NOT do an upgrade. It means he did a custom (clean) installation to the same partition as his old operating system and did not format the partition.
"John Barnes" wrote in message It would appear he is doing an upgrade of his XP or he wouldn't have a .old file. At least I did when I upgraded and didn't when I did a clean install.
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message The only thing the correction pointed out is that I didn't type 265GB and typed 250GB by mistake as to what you have left over. You learn to need to read what we give you the first time and do it.
Then if you have more questions ask them. Say explicitly what you infer that you have two partitions right now--one that is 15 GB and one that is 265GB. Whatever they are:
1) Boot into XP. 2) Insert the Vista DVD. 3) Run setup that will appear on your XP desktop. 4) It will ask you where you want Vista and you tell it as Richard said and I said where you want it--that partition that isn't XP whatever letter it is --I called it D but whatever it is that's where Vista goes.
If now you want to make further "divisions" --partitions of that big other space, you are going to have to get 3rd party software in order not to lose what is on the drive.
Do you have any further specific questions? If not as Nike says finally "Just Do It."
Good luck,
CH
"T5" wrote in message thx Chad, but as you yourself have acknowledged through your correction it is not as crystal clear as you first said. It appears that vista beta installs itself alongside xp as when I boot after I have installed vista it gives me the option to boot into vista or to another os (which I presume is xp pro although I havent tried this yet) is this correct? I do know that when I first installed vista and booted to the desktop the old windows was in a folder called windows.old "Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message Not sure what help is required that we didn't give you already on the first thread you started.
Correction: I assume you have C:\ 15GB with XP Pro and the other space is 265GB not 250GB as I typed in the first sentence. Put the DVD in after you boot to XP Pro on C:\ and setup will pop up on your XP desktop. Run the Vista setup from there and it will retain whatever drive letter you have assigned the other space.
Any further partitioning will have to be done by 3rd party like PM or Acronis if you want to retain what you have while you parcel up that 265 GB.
CH
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message T5--
1) Do you have the HD already partitioned into anything other than C:\ Do you have C:\50GB and D:\ or whichever drive letter the other 250GB?
If so just boot up XP and insert your DVD and run setup from XP and you'll get the option to direct to your other presummably 250GB partition.
On the previous thread you were told clearly to get 3rd party software to get this done. You can put Vista on the remaining space and then if you decide to make partitions out of that, you will need 3rd party as you were told by Mark Vandenberg in order not to lose what is on C:\ and I'll call your remaing space D:\ since you didn't name it.
2) You can't use diskpart from cmd or diskmgmt.msc from the run box to make a partition with fault tolerance, i.e. you need 3rd party software like Symantec's Partition Magic to make a partition and retain your XP Pro on C:\ unless you've already partitioned when you installed XP Pro and I'm guessing with the 265 GB of the 300GB HD left you haven't.
3) On the previous thread Richard Urban, Colin, I and others told you how to do this. Richard Urban's post was crystal clear and to the point. Mark told you that you needed 3rd party software. Why is this cycle repeating?
Richard Urban posted:
Vista setup does not create anything. It gets installed where YOU tell it to install to.
Prepare before you install. Use a third party program, such as Partition Magic 8.01 (or later) to shrink your current partition. You will need 20 gig of free space to create another primary partition used for the Vista install. Then create the new partition.
Getting another hard drive would be even better. Use it exclusively for your Vista experiment.
During setup, be certain to direct the installer to the correct drive/partition.
I posted: After you burn the Iso, while you are in XP, the setup for Vista will pop up on your screen. You get the chance to direct to the partition you want.
You can make partitions with Diskmanager; but it is not fault tolerant and so if you want to extend them or make new ones without losing things you can 1) Backup 2) Use 3rd party.
I don't think you'll be successful in getting MSFT to build it in. It'd be great and you can try.
CH

"T5" wrote in message Ok guys thx for all of the help and advice you gave me in my previous post now I'll give you the current configaration of my machine and see if one of you can give me an idiots guide to creating a partition and installing vista to that partition (without losing any of my current setup/files/progs etc etc)
win XP Pro on C drive all setup and working fine on a 300gb HDD with 265 GB freespace 2gb Ram Athlon 64 dualcore 3800+

No, you are correct and I blew it. (I tried to cancel my reply).
"John Barnes" wrote in message

I stand corrected.
"Colin Barnhorst" wrote in message No, windows.old means that he did NOT do an upgrade. It means he did a custom (clean) installation to the same partition as his old operating system and did not format the partition.
"John Barnes" wrote in message It would appear he is doing an upgrade of his XP or he wouldn't have a .old file. At least I did when I upgraded and didn't when I did a clean install.
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message The only thing the correction pointed out is that I didn't type 265GB and typed 250GB by mistake as to what you have left over. You learn to need to read what we give you the first time and do it.
Then if you have more questions ask them. Say explicitly what you infer that you have two partitions right now--one that is 15 GB and one that is 265GB. Whatever they are:
1) Boot into XP. 2) Insert the Vista DVD. 3) Run setup that will appear on your XP desktop. 4) It will ask you where you want Vista and you tell it as Richard said and I said where you want it--that partition that isn't XP whatever letter it is --I called it D but whatever it is that's where Vista goes.
If now you want to make further "divisions" --partitions of that big other space, you are going to have to get 3rd party software in order not to lose what is on the drive.
Do you have any further specific questions? If not as Nike says finally "Just Do It."
Good luck,
CH
"T5" wrote in message thx Chad, but as you yourself have acknowledged through your correction it is not as crystal clear as you first said. It appears that vista beta installs itself alongside xp as when I boot after I have installed vista it gives me the option to boot into vista or to another os (which I presume is xp pro although I havent tried this yet) is this correct? I do know that when I first installed vista and booted to the desktop the old windows was in a folder called windows.old "Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message Not sure what help is required that we didn't give you already on the first thread you started.
Correction: I assume you have C:\ 15GB with XP Pro and the other space is 265GB not 250GB as I typed in the first sentence. Put the DVD in after you boot to XP Pro on C:\ and setup will pop up on your XP desktop. Run the Vista setup from there and it will retain whatever drive letter you have assigned the other space.
Any further partitioning will have to be done by 3rd party like PM or Acronis if you want to retain what you have while you parcel up that 265 GB.
CH
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message T5--
1) Do you have the HD already partitioned into anything other than C:\ Do you have C:\50GB and D:\ or whichever drive letter the other 250GB?
If so just boot up XP and insert your DVD and run setup from XP and you'll get the option to direct to your other presummably 250GB partition.
On the previous thread you were told clearly to get 3rd party software to get this done. You can put Vista on the remaining space and then if you decide to make partitions out of that, you will need 3rd party as you were told by Mark Vandenberg in order not to lose what is on C:\ and I'll call your remaing space D:\ since you didn't name it.
2) You can't use diskpart from cmd or diskmgmt.msc from the run box to make a partition with fault tolerance, i.e. you need 3rd party software like Symantec's Partition Magic to make a partition and retain your XP Pro on C:\ unless you've already partitioned when you installed XP Pro and I'm guessing with the 265 GB of the 300GB HD left you haven't.
3) On the previous thread Richard Urban, Colin, I and others told you how to do this. Richard Urban's post was crystal clear and to the point. Mark told you that you needed 3rd party software. Why is this cycle repeating?
Richard Urban posted:
Vista setup does not create anything. It gets installed where YOU tell it to install to.
Prepare before you install. Use a third party program, such as Partition Magic 8.01 (or later) to shrink your current partition. You will need 20 gig of free space to create another primary partition used for the Vista install. Then create the new partition.
Getting another hard drive would be even better. Use it exclusively for your Vista experiment.
During setup, be certain to direct the installer to the correct drive/partition.
I posted: After you burn the Iso, while you are in XP, the setup for Vista will pop up on your screen. You get the chance to direct to the partition you want.
You can make partitions with Diskmanager; but it is not fault tolerant and so if you want to extend them or make new ones without losing things you can 1) Backup 2) Use 3rd party.
I don't think you'll be successful in getting MSFT to build it in. It'd be great and you can try.
CH

"T5" wrote in message Ok guys thx for all of the help and advice you gave me in my previous post now I'll give you the current configaration of my machine and see if one of you can give me an idiots guide to creating a partition and installing vista to that partition (without losing any of my current setup/files/progs etc etc)
win XP Pro on C drive all setup and working fine on a 300gb HDD with 265 GB freespace 2gb Ram Athlon 64 dualcore 3800+

You should have an option of creating a partition from the free space to install Vista on during the install.
"T5" wrote in message

Thanks John, Chad is getting really angry with me why? You seem to realise that I have xp installed and no seperate partition just a c drive so why is it that Chad seems to think that I have another partition D, E or whatever? I have never inferred that I have anything other than a C drive with win xp pro installed so why is he getting so tetchy? Ok I am not an expert but I am not stupid either. I said that I have a 300gb hdd with 265gb remaining after xp, office pro etc etc is installed so it is all on c drive, there is no D drive is that clear enough? "John Barnes" wrote in message It would appear he is doing an upgrade of his XP or he wouldn't have a .old file. At least I did when I upgraded and didn't when I did a clean install.
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message The only thing the correction pointed out is that I didn't type 265GB and typed 250GB by mistake as to what you have left over. You learn to need to read what we give you the first time and do it.
Then if you have more questions ask them. Say explicitly what you infer that you have two partitions right now--one that is 15 GB and one that is 265GB. Whatever they are:
1) Boot into XP. 2) Insert the Vista DVD. 3) Run setup that will appear on your XP desktop. 4) It will ask you where you want Vista and you tell it as Richard said and I said where you want it--that partition that isn't XP whatever letter it is --I called it D but whatever it is that's where Vista goes.
If now you want to make further "divisions" --partitions of that big other space, you are going to have to get 3rd party software in order not to lose what is on the drive.
Do you have any further specific questions? If not as Nike says finally "Just Do It."
Good luck,
CH
"T5" wrote in message thx Chad, but as you yourself have acknowledged through your correction it is not as crystal clear as you first said. It appears that vista beta installs itself alongside xp as when I boot after I have installed vista it gives me the option to boot into vista or to another os (which I presume is xp pro although I havent tried this yet) is this correct? I do know that when I first installed vista and booted to the desktop the old windows was in a folder called windows.old "Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message Not sure what help is required that we didn't give you already on the first thread you started.
Correction: I assume you have C:\ 15GB with XP Pro and the other space is 265GB not 250GB as I typed in the first sentence. Put the DVD in after you boot to XP Pro on C:\ and setup will pop up on your XP desktop. Run the Vista setup from there and it will retain whatever drive letter you have assigned the other space.
Any further partitioning will have to be done by 3rd party like PM or Acronis if you want to retain what you have while you parcel up that 265 GB.
CH
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message T5--
1) Do you have the HD already partitioned into anything other than C:\ Do you have C:\50GB and D:\ or whichever drive letter the other 250GB?
If so just boot up XP and insert your DVD and run setup from XP and you'll get the option to direct to your other presummably 250GB partition.
On the previous thread you were told clearly to get 3rd party software to get this done. You can put Vista on the remaining space and then if you decide to make partitions out of that, you will need 3rd party as you were told by Mark Vandenberg in order not to lose what is on C:\ and I'll call your remaing space D:\ since you didn't name it.
2) You can't use diskpart from cmd or diskmgmt.msc from the run box to make a partition with fault tolerance, i.e. you need 3rd party software like Symantec's Partition Magic to make a partition and retain your XP Pro on C:\ unless you've already partitioned when you installed XP Pro and I'm guessing with the 265 GB of the 300GB HD left you haven't.
3) On the previous thread Richard Urban, Colin, I and others told you how to do this. Richard Urban's post was crystal clear and to the point. Mark told you that you needed 3rd party software. Why is this cycle repeating?
Richard Urban posted:
Vista setup does not create anything. It gets installed where YOU tell it to install to.
Prepare before you install. Use a third party program, such as Partition Magic 8.01 (or later) to shrink your current partition. You will need 20 gig of free space to create another primary partition used for the Vista install. Then create the new partition.
Getting another hard drive would be even better. Use it exclusively for your Vista experiment.
During setup, be certain to direct the installer to the correct drive/partition.
I posted: After you burn the Iso, while you are in XP, the setup for Vista will pop up on your screen. You get the chance to direct to the partition you want.
You can make partitions with Diskmanager; but it is not fault tolerant and so if you want to extend them or make new ones without losing things you can 1) Backup 2) Use 3rd party.
I don't think you'll be successful in getting MSFT to build it in. It'd be great and you can try.
CH

"T5" wrote in message Ok guys thx for all of the help and advice you gave me in my previous post now I'll give you the current configaration of my machine and see if one of you can give me an idiots guide to creating a partition and installing vista to that partition (without losing any of my current setup/files/progs etc etc)
win XP Pro on C drive all setup and working fine on a 300gb HDD with 265 GB freespace 2gb Ram Athlon 64 dualcore 3800+

Chad has asked you some reasonable questions and you have not answered them. Do you understand the questions?
I'm going to try to ask them a different way.
Do you know what disk partitions are?
If you do not, you need to do some reading to find out.
Your latest post says that you have one partition, your C: drive. How much disk space is allocated to your C: partition? is it the entire 300GB of your drive?
If not, create a new partition out of the unpartitioned space on your drive.
If it is you are going to need to repartition your drive. If you use your XP Disk Manager, or the Vista install DVD, you will have to delete the current partition in order to create new partitions. If you do this you will lose your current XP install and all your data. If you have another drive with enough space you can copy your drive image there, and then after repartitioning you can copy it back. But this will take software that you probably don't have such as Ghost or Acronis. It is possible to screw up making the image, sometimes when you reinstall it, you just can't make it work, so back up your data before attempting this.
You can use third party software such as Partition Magic to repartition your drive without losing XP or your data (in most cases, backup before you start just in case). This is what I recommend, and what other posters have recommended.
At this point you need to start answering questions and start making decisions, or go somewhere else for help.
Todd
"T5" wrote in message

Thanks John, Chad is getting really angry with me why? You seem to realise that I have xp installed and no seperate partition just a c drive so why is it that Chad seems to think that I have another partition D, E or whatever? I have never inferred that I have anything other than a C drive with win xp pro installed so why is he getting so tetchy? Ok I am not an expert but I am not stupid either. I said that I have a 300gb hdd with 265gb remaining after xp, office pro etc etc is installed so it is all on c drive, there is no D drive is that clear enough? "John Barnes" wrote in message It would appear he is doing an upgrade of his XP or he wouldn't have a .old file. At least I did when I upgraded and didn't when I did a clean install.
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message The only thing the correction pointed out is that I didn't type 265GB and typed 250GB by mistake as to what you have left over. You learn to need to read what we give you the first time and do it.
Then if you have more questions ask them. Say explicitly what you infer that you have two partitions right now--one that is 15 GB and one that is 265GB. Whatever they are:
1) Boot into XP. 2) Insert the Vista DVD. 3) Run setup that will appear on your XP desktop. 4) It will ask you where you want Vista and you tell it as Richard said and I said where you want it--that partition that isn't XP whatever letter it is --I called it D but whatever it is that's where Vista goes.
If now you want to make further "divisions" --partitions of that big other space, you are going to have to get 3rd party software in order not to lose what is on the drive.
Do you have any further specific questions? If not as Nike says finally "Just Do It."
Good luck,
CH
"T5" wrote in message thx Chad, but as you yourself have acknowledged through your correction it is not as crystal clear as you first said. It appears that vista beta installs itself alongside xp as when I boot after I have installed vista it gives me the option to boot into vista or to another os (which I presume is xp pro although I havent tried this yet) is this correct? I do know that when I first installed vista and booted to the desktop the old windows was in a folder called windows.old "Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message Not sure what help is required that we didn't give you already on the first thread you started.
Correction: I assume you have C:\ 15GB with XP Pro and the other space is 265GB not 250GB as I typed in the first sentence. Put the DVD in after you boot to XP Pro on C:\ and setup will pop up on your XP desktop. Run the Vista setup from there and it will retain whatever drive letter you have assigned the other space.
Any further partitioning will have to be done by 3rd party like PM or Acronis if you want to retain what you have while you parcel up that 265 GB.
CH
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message T5--
1) Do you have the HD already partitioned into anything other than C:\ Do you have C:\50GB and D:\ or whichever drive letter the other 250GB?
If so just boot up XP and insert your DVD and run setup from XP and you'll get the option to direct to your other presummably 250GB partition.
On the previous thread you were told clearly to get 3rd party software to get this done. You can put Vista on the remaining space and then if you decide to make partitions out of that, you will need 3rd party as you were told by Mark Vandenberg in order not to lose what is on C:\ and I'll call your remaing space D:\ since you didn't name it.
2) You can't use diskpart from cmd or diskmgmt.msc from the run box to make a partition with fault tolerance, i.e. you need 3rd party software like Symantec's Partition Magic to make a partition and retain your XP Pro on C:\ unless you've already partitioned when you installed XP Pro and I'm guessing with the 265 GB of the 300GB HD left you haven't.
3) On the previous thread Richard Urban, Colin, I and others told you how to do this. Richard Urban's post was crystal clear and to the point. Mark told you that you needed 3rd party software. Why is this cycle repeating?
Richard Urban posted:
Vista setup does not create anything. It gets installed where YOU tell it to install to.
Prepare before you install. Use a third party program, such as Partition Magic 8.01 (or later) to shrink your current partition. You will need 20 gig of free space to create another primary partition used for the Vista install. Then create the new partition.
Getting another hard drive would be even better. Use it exclusively for your Vista experiment.
During setup, be certain to direct the installer to the correct drive/partition.
I posted: After you burn the Iso, while you are in XP, the setup for Vista will pop up on your screen. You get the chance to direct to the partition you want.
You can make partitions with Diskmanager; but it is not fault tolerant and so if you want to extend them or make new ones without losing things you can 1) Backup 2) Use 3rd party.
I don't think you'll be successful in getting MSFT to build it in. It'd be great and you can try.
CH

"T5" wrote in message Ok guys thx for all of the help and advice you gave me in my previous post now I'll give you the current configaration of my machine and see if one of you can give me an idiots guide to creating a partition and installing vista to that partition (without losing any of my current setup/files/progs etc etc)
win XP Pro on C drive all setup and working fine on a 300gb HDD with 265 GB freespace 2gb Ram Athlon 64 dualcore 3800+

Todd , why are you starting on me now? Read the whole thread, which part haven't I answered? I repeat XP Pro on C drive
NO PARTITION (Yes I do know what a partition is)
Jeez, I hope a newbie doesn't ask you guys a question coz he for sure won't come back
Thanks to all who have tried to help, I'll google it and do it myself
END OF POST
"Todd" wrote in message

Chad has asked you some reasonable questions and you have not answered them. Do you understand the questions?
I'm going to try to ask them a different way.
Do you know what disk partitions are?
If you do not, you need to do some reading to find out.
Your latest post says that you have one partition, your C: drive. How much disk space is allocated to your C: partition? is it the entire 300GB of your drive?
If not, create a new partition out of the unpartitioned space on your drive.
If it is you are going to need to repartition your drive. If you use your XP Disk Manager, or the Vista install DVD, you will have to delete the current partition in order to create new partitions. If you do this you will lose your current XP install and all your data. If you have another drive with enough space you can copy your drive image there, and then after repartitioning you can copy it back. But this will take software that you probably don't have such as Ghost or Acronis. It is possible to screw up making the image, sometimes when you reinstall it, you just can't make it work, so back up your data before attempting this.
You can use third party software such as Partition Magic to repartition your drive without losing XP or your data (in most cases, backup before you start just in case). This is what I recommend, and what other posters have recommended.
At this point you need to start answering questions and start making decisions, or go somewhere else for help.
Todd
"T5" wrote in message Thanks John, Chad is getting really angry with me why? You seem to realise that I have xp installed and no seperate partition just a c drive so why is it that Chad seems to think that I have another partition D, E or whatever? I have never inferred that I have anything other than a C drive with win xp pro installed so why is he getting so tetchy? Ok I am not an expert but I am not stupid either. I said that I have a 300gb hdd with 265gb remaining after xp, office pro etc etc is installed so it is all on c drive, there is no D drive is that clear enough? "John Barnes" wrote in message It would appear he is doing an upgrade of his XP or he wouldn't have a .old file. At least I did when I upgraded and didn't when I did a clean install.
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message The only thing the correction pointed out is that I didn't type 265GB and typed 250GB by mistake as to what you have left over. You learn to need to read what we give you the first time and do it.
Then if you have more questions ask them. Say explicitly what you infer that you have two partitions right now--one that is 15 GB and one that is 265GB. Whatever they are:
1) Boot into XP. 2) Insert the Vista DVD. 3) Run setup that will appear on your XP desktop. 4) It will ask you where you want Vista and you tell it as Richard said and I said where you want it--that partition that isn't XP whatever letter it is --I called it D but whatever it is that's where Vista goes.
If now you want to make further "divisions" --partitions of that big other space, you are going to have to get 3rd party software in order not to lose what is on the drive.
Do you have any further specific questions? If not as Nike says finally "Just Do It."
Good luck,
CH
"T5" wrote in message thx Chad, but as you yourself have acknowledged through your correction it is not as crystal clear as you first said. It appears that vista beta installs itself alongside xp as when I boot after I have installed vista it gives me the option to boot into vista or to another os (which I presume is xp pro although I havent tried this yet) is this correct? I do know that when I first installed vista and booted to the desktop the old windows was in a folder called windows.old "Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message Not sure what help is required that we didn't give you already on the first thread you started.
Correction: I assume you have C:\ 15GB with XP Pro and the other space is 265GB not 250GB as I typed in the first sentence. Put the DVD in after you boot to XP Pro on C:\ and setup will pop up on your XP desktop. Run the Vista setup from there and it will retain whatever drive letter you have assigned the other space.
Any further partitioning will have to be done by 3rd party like PM or Acronis if you want to retain what you have while you parcel up that 265 GB.
CH
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message T5--
1) Do you have the HD already partitioned into anything other than C:\ Do you have C:\50GB and D:\ or whichever drive letter the other 250GB?
If so just boot up XP and insert your DVD and run setup from XP and you'll get the option to direct to your other presummably 250GB partition.
On the previous thread you were told clearly to get 3rd party software to get this done. You can put Vista on the remaining space and then if you decide to make partitions out of that, you will need 3rd party as you were told by Mark Vandenberg in order not to lose what is on C:\ and I'll call your remaing space D:\ since you didn't name it.
2) You can't use diskpart from cmd or diskmgmt.msc from the run box to make a partition with fault tolerance, i.e. you need 3rd party software like Symantec's Partition Magic to make a partition and retain your XP Pro on C:\ unless you've already partitioned when you installed XP Pro and I'm guessing with the 265 GB of the 300GB HD left you haven't.
3) On the previous thread Richard Urban, Colin, I and others told you how to do this. Richard Urban's post was crystal clear and to the point. Mark told you that you needed 3rd party software. Why is this cycle repeating?
Richard Urban posted:
Vista setup does not create anything. It gets installed where YOU tell it to install to.
Prepare before you install. Use a third party program, such as Partition Magic 8.01 (or later) to shrink your current partition. You will need 20 gig of free space to create another primary partition used for the Vista install. Then create the new partition.
Getting another hard drive would be even better. Use it exclusively for your Vista experiment.
During setup, be certain to direct the installer to the correct drive/partition.
I posted: After you burn the Iso, while you are in XP, the setup for Vista will pop up on your screen. You get the chance to direct to the partition you want.
You can make partitions with Diskmanager; but it is not fault tolerant and so if you want to extend them or make new ones without losing things you can 1) Backup 2) Use 3rd party.
I don't think you'll be successful in getting MSFT to build it in. It'd be great and you can try.
CH

"T5" wrote in message Ok guys thx for all of the help and advice you gave me in my previous post now I'll give you the current configaration of my machine and see if one of you can give me an idiots guide to creating a partition and installing vista to that partition (without losing any of my current setup/files/progs etc etc)
win XP Pro on C drive all setup and working fine on a 300gb HDD with 265 GB freespace 2gb Ram Athlon 64 dualcore 3800+

I answered your question in a previous post, so calm down. When you chose to do a clean install you will have the opportunity to create and format a partition in your free space. Terms are a little different in Vista and you may have to click on an advanced button, but it is all there. Be observant when you install it.
"T5" wrote in message

Todd , why are you starting on me now? Read the whole thread, which part haven't I answered? I repeat XP Pro on C drive
NO PARTITION (Yes I do know what a partition is)
Jeez, I hope a newbie doesn't ask you guys a question coz he for sure won't come back
Thanks to all who have tried to help, I'll google it and do it myself
END OF POST
"Todd" wrote in message Chad has asked you some reasonable questions and you have not answered them. Do you understand the questions?
I'm going to try to ask them a different way.
Do you know what disk partitions are?
If you do not, you need to do some reading to find out.
Your latest post says that you have one partition, your C: drive. How much disk space is allocated to your C: partition? is it the entire 300GB of your drive?
If not, create a new partition out of the unpartitioned space on your drive.
If it is you are going to need to repartition your drive. If you use your XP Disk Manager, or the Vista install DVD, you will have to delete the current partition in order to create new partitions. If you do this you will lose your current XP install and all your data. If you have another drive with enough space you can copy your drive image there, and then after repartitioning you can copy it back. But this will take software that you probably don't have such as Ghost or Acronis. It is possible to screw up making the image, sometimes when you reinstall it, you just can't make it work, so back up your data before attempting this.
You can use third party software such as Partition Magic to repartition your drive without losing XP or your data (in most cases, backup before you start just in case). This is what I recommend, and what other posters have recommended.
At this point you need to start answering questions and start making decisions, or go somewhere else for help.
Todd
"T5" wrote in message Thanks John, Chad is getting really angry with me why? You seem to realise that I have xp installed and no seperate partition just a c drive so why is it that Chad seems to think that I have another partition D, E or whatever? I have never inferred that I have anything other than a C drive with win xp pro installed so why is he getting so tetchy? Ok I am not an expert but I am not stupid either. I said that I have a 300gb hdd with 265gb remaining after xp, office pro etc etc is installed so it is all on c drive, there is no D drive is that clear enough? "John Barnes" wrote in message It would appear he is doing an upgrade of his XP or he wouldn't have a .old file. At least I did when I upgraded and didn't when I did a clean install.
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message The only thing the correction pointed out is that I didn't type 265GB and typed 250GB by mistake as to what you have left over. You learn to need to read what we give you the first time and do it.
Then if you have more questions ask them. Say explicitly what you infer that you have two partitions right now--one that is 15 GB and one that is 265GB. Whatever they are:
1) Boot into XP. 2) Insert the Vista DVD. 3) Run setup that will appear on your XP desktop. 4) It will ask you where you want Vista and you tell it as Richard said and I said where you want it--that partition that isn't XP whatever letter it is --I called it D but whatever it is that's where Vista goes.
If now you want to make further "divisions" --partitions of that big other space, you are going to have to get 3rd party software in order not to lose what is on the drive.
Do you have any further specific questions? If not as Nike says finally "Just Do It."
Good luck,
CH
"T5" wrote in message thx Chad, but as you yourself have acknowledged through your correction it is not as crystal clear as you first said. It appears that vista beta installs itself alongside xp as when I boot after I have installed vista it gives me the option to boot into vista or to another os (which I presume is xp pro although I havent tried this yet) is this correct? I do know that when I first installed vista and booted to the desktop the old windows was in a folder called windows.old "Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message Not sure what help is required that we didn't give you already on the first thread you started.
Correction: I assume you have C:\ 15GB with XP Pro and the other space is 265GB not 250GB as I typed in the first sentence. Put the DVD in after you boot to XP Pro on C:\ and setup will pop up on your XP desktop. Run the Vista setup from there and it will retain whatever drive letter you have assigned the other space.
Any further partitioning will have to be done by 3rd party like PM or Acronis if you want to retain what you have while you parcel up that 265 GB.
CH
"Chad Harris" <Bushisamoron.net> wrote in message T5--
1) Do you have the HD already partitioned into anything other than C:\ Do you have C:\50GB and D:\ or whichever drive letter the other 250GB?
If so just boot up XP and insert your DVD and run setup from XP and you'll get the option to direct to your other presummably 250GB partition.
On the previous thread you were told clearly to get 3rd party software to get this done. You can put Vista on the remaining space and then if you decide to make partitions out of that, you will need 3rd party as you were told by Mark Vandenberg in order not to lose what is on C:\ and I'll call your remaing space D:\ since you didn't name it.
2) You can't use diskpart from cmd or diskmgmt.msc from the run box to make a partition with fault tolerance, i.e. you need 3rd party software like Symantec's Partition Magic to make a partition and retain your XP Pro on C:\ unless you've already partitioned when you installed XP Pro and I'm guessing with the 265 GB of the 300GB HD left you haven't.
3) On the previous thread Richard Urban, Colin, I and others told you how to do this. Richard Urban's post was crystal clear and to the point. Mark told you that you needed 3rd party software. Why is this cycle repeating?
Richard Urban posted:
Vista setup does not create anything. It gets installed where YOU tell it to install to.
Prepare before you install. Use a third party program, such as Partition Magic 8.01 (or later) to shrink your current partition. You will need 20 gig of free space to create another primary partition used for the Vista install. Then create the new partition.
Getting another hard drive would be even better. Use it exclusively for your Vista experiment.
During setup, be certain to direct the installer to the correct drive/partition.
I posted: After you burn the Iso, while you are in XP, the setup for Vista will pop up on your screen. You get the chance to direct to the partition you want.
You can make partitions with Diskmanager; but it is not fault tolerant and so if you want to extend them or make new ones without losing things you can 1) Backup 2) Use 3rd party.
I don't think you'll be successful in getting MSFT to build it in. It'd be great and you can try.
CH

"T5" wrote in message Ok guys thx for all of the help and advice you gave me in my previous post now I'll give you the current configaration of my machine and see if one of you can give me an idiots guide to creating a partition and installing vista to that partition (without losing any of my current setup/files/progs etc etc)
win XP Pro on C drive all setup and working fine on a 300gb HDD with 265 GB freespace 2gb Ram Athlon 64 dualcore 3800+