hoofhearted4 Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 so im new to computers and i know a little bit about partitioning. ive done it in class but under a controlled setting. so im nervous about doing it when i could mess something up lol. what i wanna do is put windows XP on my moms PC. she already has W7. that should be easy enough. but is it possible to take all the files from the W7 partition and move them to the XP partition and then delete the W7 partition? what happened is my mom wanted to try W7. so i upgraded her OS from XP to W7. well she doesnt like it (she doesnt like change, so she wants to go back to what she knows) now as far as i know you cant just downgrade your OS without formatting, which is why i wanna know if i can copy the files from one to the other....but it has to be everything. all files all documents, pictures, programs, etc,etc. if she loses anything no matter how little it is, shes gunna cry, no joke. even if its something small, the day she goes looking for it years down the road, is the day shell freak lol. so ya, any help would be appreciated. and with a breif explanation on how to do this would be nice as well, help me learn more :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N3C14R Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 You can't really partition a drive that already has data on it. If you have an external drive, just transfer all her important data onto it, format the drive and split it into two NTFS partitions. A 60:40 ratio partition would be good since Win 7 has a larger installation than xp so the 60:40 ratio would benefit by having a more even free space between the 2 OS'es. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iansaltman Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 To the best of my knowledge even if you did make a new partition you still wouldnt be able to copy the files from one partition to the other. You could always try this along with a lap top however, then transfering from the laptop to XP. You dont have to get that cord off of Amazon, I saw one at my local Best-buy not too long ago. If you have a flash you could do it slowly with that by putting everything on another computer. If someone else wants to correct me on my first statement feel free. Hope I helped a little bit. -Ian Lewis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoofhearted4 Posted August 22, 2011 Author Share Posted August 22, 2011 i thought you could partition the free space thats left on the drive? but ya i figured you couldnt do what i asked, but i figured id ask anyways. i do have a 1tb external HDD, back backing up on does like essential things right? id basically have to manually copy everything over to the HDD wouldnt i? ugh the more i look into this, the more i just wanna tell my mom to deal with it. she doesnt like it cause its not quite as fast, which its not, but she can deal lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N3C14R Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 (edited) i do have a 1tb external HDD, back backing up on does like essential things right? id basically have to manually copy everything over to the HDD wouldnt i?Copy & paste C:\ drive. Then delete obsolete data (Windows folder, program files, etc) :) Been doing that since I changed computers, upgraded from XP Pro, Vista and finally 7. Edited August 22, 2011 by N3C14R Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoofhearted4 Posted August 22, 2011 Author Share Posted August 22, 2011 can you go into detail please?!?! thats what i wanted to hear, just dont wanna mess it up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prandiningrat Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 if you install XP on win 7 partition, it will delete win7's bootloader(even on other partition)..That's because XP wont recognize win 7 bootloader, but win 7 will recognize win xp bootloader... So you need to install Windws XP first by formatting win 7 partition include 100MB boot partition,then you can create new partition for installing win 7. and you can configure multiboot with bcedit(replacement of boot.ini) or use win 7 control panel...you can use Mini Tool Partition Manager Home for creating partitions...dont forget, the first partition as primary and other is logical(extended), and set as an active on first partition...I'd suggest, if you want using multiboot OS, It would be better if you use another hdd and put your XP installation into it, and you can change boot settings on BIOS easily.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samadchaz Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 so im new to computers and i know a little bit about partitioning. ive done it in class but under a controlled setting. so im nervous about doing it when i could mess something up lol. what i wanna do is put windows XP on my moms PC. she already has W7. that should be easy enough. but is it possible to take all the files from the W7 partition and move them to the XP partition and then delete the W7 partition? what happened is my mom wanted to try W7. so i upgraded her OS from XP to W7. well she doesnt like it (she doesnt like change, so she wants to go back to what she knows) now as far as i know you cant just downgrade your OS without formatting, which is why i wanna know if i can copy the files from one to the other....but it has to be everything. all files all documents, pictures, programs, etc,etc. if she loses anything no matter how little it is, shes gunna cry, no joke. even if its something small, the day she goes looking for it years down the road, is the day shell freak lol. so ya, any help would be appreciated. and with a breif explanation on how to do this would be nice as well, help me learn more :) you cannot restore program files of windows 7 in XP, because of license and registry keys.Copy-Paste wont work, you have to install whole programs in yours moms computer after installing XP.Pictures,Music,Videos etc can be copy paste.also you upgrade it instead of Fresh/New Install which is I dont recommend, better is let the XP install in C: drive (Primary Partition) and install other OS in logical partition as New Installation.so you can delete the logical partition/s and create back again.Remember you cannot delete primary partition! you will lose all the logical partitions data too.Read the previous post of Bandit Ngebak to deal with problem of dual booting in XP/Vista, XP/7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoofhearted4 Posted August 23, 2011 Author Share Posted August 23, 2011 meh i think im just gunna leave it alone, i fixed a few of the simple problems she didnt like about windows 7 so shes better now, it wasnt windows 7 she didnt like, it was just some of the default settings, like putting her PC into sleep, shed have to reboot every time she went on, or when she used the internet, shed go type something into the Google Bar and after the first letter it would try to guess what she was typing and it would freeze for like 20 seconds. she always complained about these, and i fixed them both so shes happy so far lol. i dont think ill have to go through with going back to XP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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