Advice needed prior to hard drive install

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old-user
Posts: 39
Joined: Fri 22 Feb 2013, 18:37

Advice needed prior to hard drive install

#1 Post by old-user »

I am currently running Windows 7 and i would like to install Precise Puppy alongside Windows 7. What i would like to know is, could i open up windows 7 and reduce the amount of disk space by about 10 or 20 GB and then create a new partition and swap partition and then carry on the install procedure? Thanks.

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rcrsn51
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Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#2 Post by rcrsn51 »

Puppy has a tool called Gparted for resizing and creating partitions. But do NOT use it to resize a Win7 partition! There have been reports that it will break Windows.

However, Win7 has a disk management tool that will safely shrink its own partition. Then you can boot off a Puppy CD and run Gparted to build some Linux partitions in the new empty space.

Your next issue will be to install a bootloader on the hard drive that can dual-boot your Win7 and Puppy. If you have no experience with this, I would suggest that you get an old machine to practice on. There is a chance that you could disable your Win7 setup if you make a mistake with the bootloader.

old-user
Posts: 39
Joined: Fri 22 Feb 2013, 18:37

#3 Post by old-user »

Hi rcrsn51
I do know how to use the disk management tool in Windows and i thought Windows provided a bootloader so as to safely boot either OS. Shall have to wait until i am sure.

Thanks for your reply and helpful advice.

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rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#4 Post by rcrsn51 »

Read here about EasyBCD.

Also, read here and here.

old-user
Posts: 39
Joined: Fri 22 Feb 2013, 18:37

#5 Post by old-user »

Yes i do have EasyBCD on my machine. Interesting and informative links. Shall have a good read later. Thanks!

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rjbrewer
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Location: merriam, kansas

Re: Advice needed prior to hard drive install

#6 Post by rjbrewer »

old-user wrote:I am currently running Windows 7 and i would like to install Precise Puppy alongside Windows 7. What i would like to know is, could i open up windows 7 and reduce the amount of disk space by about 10 or 20 GB and then create a new partition and swap partition and then carry on the install procedure? Thanks.
You can shrink Win 7 from within Win 7 itself.
Defragment and make backup first.

I've used Gparted to shrink Win 7 a few times, but care
must be taken to first defragment Win, and right after
shrinking, boot Win so it runs checkdisk.
This is risky and I wouldn't have done it without a repair
disk and backup image.

Inspiron 700m, Pent.M 1.6Ghz, 1Gb ram.
Msi Wind U100, N270 1.6>2.0Ghz, 1.5Gb ram.
Eeepc 8g 701, 900Mhz, 1Gb ram.
Full installs

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