Dual Boot Win 7 and Win 8

[skyline4727]

Hi guys,
I have a Samsung Q430 laptop with a 465gb HDD and it's running Windows 7 Home Premium x64. I wanted to dual boot Windows 8 but the computer already has 4 partitions, C, D, System, and OEM so it won't let me put Win 8 on another partition. I'm thinking of upgrading Win 7 to Pro so would it be a good idea to nuke the entire drive, including the OEM partition and then have C with Win 7, D with Win 8, and E with documents and pictures so I can access it from both OS. I'm not sure if that will work because if Win 8 also creates a system partition I would have 5 partitions which is one more than Windows allows. I want to know before I try because if I won't let me it's not worth the effort and I might as well stick with Win 7 Home Premium.

 

[cin19]

First all, you don't need format the whole HDD to do the dual boot win7 and win8.

You download the "Easeus Partition Master Free Edition" from here: http://www.partition-tool.com/landing/home-download.htm
Then you can make the big enough for the win8 installation, check the Windows 8 system requirements. But I will make one 80 to 100GB for it.

Then you can check the link for how to install win8 for dual boot win7/win8. I done this on my test PC it works well and easy to do.
http://blog.laptopmag.com/how-to-dual-boot-windows-8-while-keeping-windows-7-as-your-default-os

And if you want you can format the whole HDD, then do the same thing to install win7 or win8 one by one to make the dual boot too.

 

[skyline4727]

First all, you don't need format the whole HDD to do the dual boot win7 and win8.

You download the "Easeus Partition Master Free Edition" from here: http://www.partition-tool.com/landing/home-download.htm
Then you can make the big enough for the win8 installation, check the Windows 8 system requirements. But I will make one 80 to 100GB for it.

Then you can check the link for how to install win8 for dual boot win7/win8. I done this on my test PC it works well and easy to do.
http://blog.laptopmag.com/how-to-dual-boot-windows-8-while-keeping-windows-7-as-your-default-os

And if you want you can format the whole HDD, then do the same thing to install win7 or win8 one by one to make the dual boot too.

Does the program you suggested have any benefits over using the included Windows partition? Does it solve the problem of having too many partitions because I know Windows limits it to 4 active partitions.

 

[cin19]

If you can use the windows partition, then you don't need. But sometime you have hard time to do the partition then "Easeus Partition Master Free Edition" is the way to go.