Installing a second OS with PartitionMagic

January 30, 2004 9:50 AM

Installing a second OS with PartitionMagic

I'm on WinXP, and it needs a clean install. Rather than wiping out my HD, I'd rather use PartitionMagic 8 to install on a new partition and then slowly migrate. I've done this before when I moved from ME to XP without much of a problem, but this time, I can't seem to find the right settings, not even with the help of the wizard. Should the new partition be FAT32 or NTFS, should it be primary or logical, should it be hidden or active? I've tried several combinations, but whenever I try to boot to the new partition, I don't even get the chance to install XP from a CD -- usually just an "Invalid disc" error. What am I doing wrong? Googling and documentation didn't help.

I hope this isn't too specific for AskMe. Thanks.

posted by muckster to computers & internet (2 comments total)

it can be ntfs or fat32, afaik. it shouldn't be hidden. it does need to be bootable. if you've only got two partitions they can both be primary.

you might have some strange bios that can only boot from near the start of the disk, so (i think pm allows this) you could try inserting the new partition at the start.

and see if anyone else replies because i'm not an expert on this :o)
posted by andrew cooke at 11:49 AM on January 30, 2004

thanks andrew. i'm ready to give this another shot and found this document, which also mentions problems unless the boot partition is near the start of the disc (within 8GB).

i realize nobody is reading this anymore, but perhaps one fine day somebody will pull this up in google. this is for you, anonymous googler from the future!
posted by muckster at 11:48 AM on February 7, 2004