Creating multiple partitions using Bootit NG

rowenazone, any feedback?

Yes and no. I am guessing that that means no but I still don't understand the allocate high option.

To quote what the article says:

æSelect the Allocate High option if you want remaining free space (if any) to be located above the new extended partition.  By default, when a partition is created, remaining free space (if any) will be located below the new partition.

Now to give an example:  say that you have three primary partitions already created on a hard disk plus some free (unallocated) space following them, like this:

1111111222222333333FFFFFFFFFF

Now you're creating an extended partition in the free space so that you you can have another couple of logical partitions as part of the extended partition  (thus, by using an extended partition you are able to have 5 partitions altogether for creating an OS in or storing data in; otherwise, without the extended partition, you would be limited to only 4 partitions and they would all be primary.)

Further, say that you don't want to use all the free space up to create the extended partition.  Then you have two choices that you can end up with (where the E's denote an extended partition and F's denote free space):

1111111222222333333EEEEEEEFF

or

1111111222222333333FFEEEEEEE

According to the article, the normal case is case 2 above, while the "Allocate high" option is case 1 above.

Does that make it clear?

Thanks for that I have a new problem now.

I have loaded bootit and had it create the xp partition, everything was going well until the xp installation fnished loading drivers then started loading windows and it bluescreens saying:




A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you have seen this Stop error screen,
restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow
these steps:

Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed
hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive
to make sure it is properly configured and terminated.
Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then
restart your computer.

Technical information:
*** STOP: 0x0000007 (0xF78DA63C, 0xc0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

Any ideas guys?

Did you try the steps mentioned in the message?  Particularly running CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption?

A couple of comments ...

First, LeeTutor has the right idea, but got it backwards r.e. how "Allocate High" works.

To use his example ...

If you start with
1111111222222333333...................   (where the .'s represent unallocated space)
and then add a new partition E,  it would normally end up like this:
1111111222222333333EEE.............
but with "Allocate High" selected it would be like this:
1111111222222333333............EEEE

I agree the Boot-It documentation isn't as clear as it could be on this :-)

As for why XP isn't installing ...

Describe EXACTLY how you have your Boot Item configured for XP;   and also post exactly what your current partition structure is as shown in Partition Work.    This may provide a clue as to what you need to do.

Thanks for that Gary.

When I got the laptop it had vista installed and a data partition set up.

Now it looks like this:
MBR Entry 0         Partition     10000 Type 27h/39
Acer-1                 Partition      65000  HPFS/NTFS
Bootit  EMBRM     Partition      5           Bootit EMBRM
Windows XP        Partition     82625   HPFS/NTFS
DATA-2                Partition     147613 HPFS/NTFS
------------             Partition     Free space



As far as the boot item being configured I have HD=0
Boot= windows XP
and everything else empty.

In the MBR details window it just has 0) Window XP then nothing against 1,2,or 3

The XP boot item looks right.

What does the MBR for the Vista boot item look like?

When you installed XP, did you do it like this ...  Attempt to boot to the XP item;  then when it fails, do Ctrl-Alt-Del and chose to boot to CD ... then put the XP CD in and boot from it.

... and, assuming so, when it was time to select the partition to install to, are you sure you selected the correct partition (it should have been the only current partition XP saw -- the rest of the disk should have been displayed as free space).

The MBR for vista says:
0)MBR Entry 0
1)Acer-1
2)DATA-2
Bootit EMBRM

And yes I was really sure to attempt to boot into xp before installing, and yes I think I chose the right partition to put it on, I have installed many OS's before and I am always really careful, also VIsta still boots fine so if I had screwed up surely that wouldn't work?

I would do the following (in the order listed) ...

(1)  Try to reinstall XP again -- from what you've said, you did it correctly;  but it won't hurt to try it a 2nd time.   First, however, go into Partition Work and delete the partition you created for XP;  then re-create it ... and then do the attempted boot, followed by the install.

(2)  If that still gives you issues, then there may be some problem with the XP install on this system.   Is your XP installation disk an original version or does it have a service pack included (if so, which one) ??     You may need to slipstream a service pack to get XP to install.

(3)  There are a couple other things you can try ... but before suggesting them I need to know if there's any boot code in the 1st partition that is required for Vista.    Go into Boot-It's boot edit for Vista and "Clear" the 1st slot ... then see if Vista still boots.    (If not, just fill it with that partition again)

Ok doing that now.

When I create the new partition do I check in options either multi - os or allocate high?

No, don't check either of those.

Ok here goes:

1) Did that and nothing changed.
2) Tried a different copy of xp with sp 1 & 2 and still nothing changed.
3) cleared the 0) row in the vista boot edit and yes it still boots into vista fine.

Cheers

Make/model of laptop?
... you may have a chipset that's not supported by XP -- or at least requires SP3 to use.    Do you have an XP install CD with SP3?    If not, you may want to create one by slipstreaming.

Its an Acer Travel mate 5730G it came with vista loaded and a downgradable option to xp but the disk that came with it isn't a straight copy of xp and I didn't get a vista disk either, not sure what I really got when you think of it, I can dig the disk out if necessary.

I don't have a copy of xp with sp3 on, what is slipstreaming and how would I go about that?