Using GParted To Create Dual-Boot Vista Partitions

Have you ever wished to have multiple Windows installed on your computer? Having a multi-boot system has many applications, such as:

• Set up one Windows system for your work or school, and set up another Windows system for your family and kids, all in one single computer
  
• Use one Windows installation for your sensitive data, and use another installation for gaming and the Internet
  
• Set up multiple Windows for different languages, for example one for English and another for Spanish
  
• Try different Windows versions, one for Vista, one for XP and another for Windows ME.
  

In order to set up multiple installations of Windows in a single computer, you need to slice your hard drive into several partitions using a partitioning tool such as GParted. Get a GParted live CD and boot your computer with it.

Partitioning Advices

Here's what you need to know about multiple Windows installation:

• One primary partition must be set up with Windows Vista or XP and set active. This partition will be used to boot itself and optionally other Windows partitions, primary or logical.
  
• If multiple primary partitions have Windows installed, then only one of them should be active and the others should be hidden.
  

GParted in Action

Once you booted GParted live CD, launch GParted.

In most case, you'll see a Windows partion (type ntfs) as the first primary partition. If you need to resize it to make space available for the second Windows partition, you can use GParted, but I recommend you to use ntfsresize.

Now hide your existing Windows partition by right-clicking it and choosing Manage Flags.

Clear the boot flag and set the hidden flag. Then click Close.

Click the unallocated area and click New on the toolbar. Create new Partition dialog appears on screen. Set the size in the New Size box, create it as a Primary Partition and make it ntfs. Click Add.

Look at the GParted window and make sure the new hard disk layout is okay. Click Apply on the toolbar.

A confirmation dialog appears. Click Apply.

If everything goes well, a dialog appears saying All operations successfully completed. Click Close.

Right-click the newly created NTFS partition and select Manage Flags from the right-click menu. In the Manage flags window, only set the boot flag and click Close.

Quit GParted. Put your Windows installation DVD into your CD-ROM and reboot.