dual booting problem

new here so firstly, hi to all. i need some advice please, so hope some can help and am posting in the correct place. will try to describe the issues below. if i am not clear enough, let me know and i will do my best to explain better.
anyway, i had win XP and win 7 installed as dual boot on one HDD, all working fine. i used Acronis True Image to take a complete back up of both partitions together because i wanted to change to a bigger HDD. i changed drives and imaged on to the new HDD and all works fine. i can boot into either O/S. what i forgot to do was partition the new HDD first so as to leave all free space (approx 300gig) in one partition at the end of the drive. what happened was that the image partitioned the new HDD approx in half, so i have an XP partition of approx 230gig (i wanted about 75gig) and a win 7 partiton of approx 230gig (i wanted about 75gig as well). how can i get the 2 O/S next to each other and have all the free space behind those 2 O/S partitions? i know i can 'shrink' each partition but that will create separate partitions on each partition that is already there. if i do that, how can i merge the 2 new partitions of free space together, as they are not adjacent to each other? also, i noticed that the XP partition is set to 'Primary' but the win 7 partition is set to 'Logical'. is that correct or should both O/S partitions be set to 'Primary'? if so, why is the win 7 partition set as 'Logical' anyway?

any help greatly appreciated
TIA

Hi welcome to the forum Prettygrim.

Could you get a screen grab of disk management so we can see what we have to work with before modifying any partitions

NmsUK

hi. tnx for reply. the screen dump i have is to a word document and is over a meg. is that too big? how to get smaller and upload here, please?

Originally Posted by Prettygrim

hi. tnx for reply. the screen dump i have is to a word document and is over a meg. is that too big? how to get smaller and upload here, please?

Hi Prettygrim and Welcome to The Forum.

nmsuk is asking for a screenshot (or snip) of your Disk Manager to see the layout of your partitions.
To open Disk Manager type diskmgmt.msc in the Start Menu Search box or a Run... window. As an Example, here's a screenshot snip of my Disk Manager.



HTH.

hi Elmer. i understand what is required but dont know how to get the image small enough to upload. i already have the screen dump, but it is 1.1meg in size. i can rar the file to upload. just wannted to know how to get the image as a small file for you all to look at. being a bit thick maybe. sorry

Originally Posted by Prettygrim

hi Elmer. i understand what is required but dont know how to get the image small enough to upload. i already have the screen dump, but it is 1.1meg in size. i can rar the file to upload. just wannted to know how to get the image as a small file for you all to look at. being a bit thick maybe. sorry

Just post that

With your image displayed on the screen, press Prt Sc. This will place a copy of your screen in the clipboard. Next open Paint and paste the image. You can then Crop the image to display only the portion you want. Select save (I save to my desktop to make it easy to find.

Now in the Forum choose Go Advanced. This will open the full editor. Click on the Paperclip:



Follow the directions to Choose Add Files, Choose Upload Files, then Choose Insert. This will insert your screen shot where the cursor is placed.

firstly, appologies to Elmer. should have said 'thanks for welcome message'. sorry. anyway, have got the image to a few kb now. hope you can see it ok. the object of the exercise is to have the 2 O/S on separate partitions, next to each other and all the free space at the right hand end on it's own partition. also, should all partitions be 'Primary'? tnx for help guys

I would Image the Win 7 drive. Then use a partitioning tool such as Partition Wizard or Easeus Partition Magic to partition the XP partition to 2 separate partitions. I would then use the Win 7 image to restore into the newly created partition. You might have to fix the MBR. Then use the partitioning app to delete the old Win 7 partition which should leave it unallocated. You should then be able to use the partition app to extend the existing Back up partition into the unallocated space on both ends. I have used both of these partitioning tools successfully.

Did Acronis not give you the option to keep the same size partitions as the original install? If it did have that option, I would reimage and use that option.

If not, there may be several possible routes, but Partition Wizard will move partitions. I have done it, but it is dangerous any time you move the leading edge of a partition. I suppose since you have a image to recover, it would not hurt to try.

Always keep in mind the boot files for Windows 7 are in the XP partition. And no, the Windows 7 partition does not have to be a logical partition, but it will work as long as you have a primary active partition to place the boot files.