Solved Installing Windows 8 on same HDD as Windows 7

[acdougla17]

So I have never tried to install 2 OS's on the same drive before and really am not sure what I am doing. I have tried a bunch of different things I have read on these forums and nothing seems to be working. Everytime I try to run the Windows 8 setup, it tells me I can't install on a dynamic volume.

I just finished burning my recovery disks, then deleting the recovery partition since my laptop had 4 partitions by default. I click on my C: drive and select "Shrink Volume" so I end up with a 100GB partition for Windows 8. But now if I go try and install, I get an error message. Wiping this hard drive is not an option. So is there any way to do fix this without having to buy some software.

 

[boyans]

I would convert the dynamic disk to basic unless you plan multi-partition volumes.

EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition (free) could do (was first on topic search).
The tool can convert dynamic to basic disk without data loss according to site docu.
You have made a disk backup so you can restore if something goes wrong.

There are other free disk manager - just google and read docs:
PartitionWizzard, PartitionGuru.

 

[bassfisher6522]

You deleted you recovery partition....that was your hidden partition for a factory default reset, if this was a retail branded PC. One should never delete this partition unless you have a retail version of windows.

Youtube had some great video's on this subject and shows you step by step.

 

[acdougla17]

Well I burned the recovery disks so shouldn't it be safe to delete the recovery partition (I already did).

I managed to get this working by using partition wizard to convert back from dynamic to basic.