How many partitions can be created in Windows 7

Hi, 

I need some help to understand how a problem I'm facing can be sorted.

Scenario:

500GB OS disk which was previously partitioned into

150GB Windows XP (Active, Primary)

150GB Windows Vista x64 (Primary)

150GB set aside for Linux (which I never got round to installing - Logical).

Dual boot worked fine.  XP was mainly for an old scanner which didn't have Vista drivers.

Then I bought Windows 7. The in situ upgrade from Vista didn't work so I went for a clean install. I resized the rarely used XP partition down to 20GB and proceeded to install Win 7 which installed fine. Have been using it for a few months now. The XP, Vista & reserved for (but never used) Linux partitions are all still there are accessible from within Win7.

I noticed however that Win 7 didn't list Vista or XP in the boot loader as I expected it to. In fact no boot loader, the machine just boots into Win 7 as if the others weren't there. Not a huge loss at first as I reinstalled nearly all my software under 7 and haven't needed to access the Vista install until now....

Now I need to access a program which I had installed under Vista but won't install under Win 7 (listed as incompatible). A new version is avail, but I'd have to pay to upgrade, so I'd rather just dual boot into Vista and use it there instead.

Here's what I've tried and found so far.

I thought I'd use BCDEDIT to add entries for Vista (and later XP once I can dual boot 7 & Vista), but when I issue a:

bcdedit /create /d "Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit" /application osloader

from an elevated cmd prompt, I get a confirmation:

The entry {aa4ea7e0-7037-11e0-9c8c-acae0cfa4a30} was successfully created.

but when I do a

bcdedit /enum ACTIVE

I don't see the new entry in the list. Only the existing Win7 entry which strangely has the same ID as the supposedly new Vista entry.

I also noticed that there is no 100MB system partition on the disk that the Win7 install normally creates. Is this where the bcd store would normally be? If so, where is my actual bcd store and how can I access/modify it?

Are the two issues linked? i.e. is the reason there's no System partition due to there being too many partitions or is there another reason?

Or am I simply using bcdedit incorrectly?

Apologies for the long post, and for resurrecting an old thread, but I thought this might be linked. I can repost as a new question if it would help.

Thanks for reading and for any help!

Kulwant

"Steve Winograd" wrote in message

news:1c7fc550-0903-4329-90e2-39fc607614bf...

> Please describe the current partition structure on Disk 0, as shown

> by Disk Management . Primary partitions have a dark blue top

> border. An extended partition has a green border all around it.

> Logical drives within a primary partition have a lighter blue top

> border.

Thanks very much, Steve. I never knew that before.

--

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003

Ken Blake

Please describe the current partition structure on Disk 0, as shown by Disk Management .  Primary partitions have a dark blue top border.  An extended partition has a green border all around it.  Logical drives within a primary partition have a lighter blue top border.

Boulder Computer Maven

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional

So if i have a primary partition C: with capacity of 180 GB

and then i want to create two other drives as D and E which are logical partitions of 60 GB each.

Then i will go to Disk Management  and then shrink it to create a space of 120 GB.

then create a partition as D with 60 GB

and E as another drive with 60 GB (this does not work as it shoots the error like you have already used maximum number

of disk volumes)

leaving C: with 60 GB.

Does that mean that if i create D as primary partition and leave E as logical, it will work?