Instalilng the Windows Vista Beta 2, dual boot and partition questions

[bosox188]

I have 2 hard drives on my comp, one of which has XP on it and the other is a 60GB drive that I have used to install a few games on. I would like to install Vista on the 60GB drive and be able to dual boot between Vista and XP. I know that I have to make a partition on the drive, probably just 30GB to install Vista on. I know that when installing XP it lets you create a partition on a hdd during the install, is Vista the same or will I have to create a partition on the drive right now from XP? If I have to do that, where do I go to do that I've forgotten. Thanks.

 

[mr spoon]

Software like Partition Magic (but free) is what you want, there is a 30 day trial of that available. However, I'd recommend cleaning off the 60GiB drive by moving stuff around, and installing clean onto that, much easier.

 

[DreamThrall]

The ability to partition before an install has been around for the last several versions of Windows, I can't imagine them changing it for Vista... that said, I haven't actually tried to install it myself.

 

[Dancingwllamas]

I was not able to use the Vista installer to create a new partition unless I formatted the drive. Using QTParted with Knoppix allowed me to shink the size of my existing partition so I could install on a new one.*

*If you are going to do this, back up your data that is on the drive you intend to add the partition to. QTParted usually works, but it's always good to be safe.

 

[bosox188]

Ok I was able to get it working fine, it's got the dual boot thing set up so it's fine. Vista looks nice so far, only problem is I can't get the internet working. It's telling me when it scans for networking hardware devices that it can't find any. In XP it lists the device I'm using as one made by 3Com. I'm searching their site now to see if there's anything I can find.

 

[giant384]

you need updated motherboard drivers fro vista and not all brands have them

 

[Asus]

Yeah just grab system drivers and put them on a CD or a flash drive before booting back in vista. Then install.

Here is a vista compatibility list I ran into while searching online.

I have had only 1 issue so far with Vista. With my 3 harddrives plugged in, it gave me a "Setup could not get information about the disks on your computer." error. After I removed all but 1 of my HDDs and had it installed then it worked with the other 3 back in the system.

Creative sound, nForce system and ATI gfx card drivers all worked fine so far.