@Matt123 wrote:
Reading from Disk Management my partitions look like this.
WINRE_DRV H: (1000MB) , SYSTEM_DRV K: (System, Active) 260 MB , L: 128 MB , Windows8_OS C: 464.4 GB
These are the 4 primary partiotions. using the Partition wizard i could only change drive H: and K: to logical. but as you said the active & boot partition must remain primary so it only leaves partition H: (partition L: cannot be changed to logical).
so how shall i proceed to have logical partitions in contiguous form?
So this is a 500GB drive? Is it currently MBR, or is it GPT? What does Partition Wizard say about the drive?
I don't know how you got drive letters of H, K and L. Normally drive letters are assigned sequentially, starting from C for the Windows partition. Very strange. Are you reading from DISKMGMT running on Win8?? Or something else?
Also, I didn't say that the Windows partition needed to be primary. It is only the "active" partition (where Boot Manager lives) which MUST be primary. All other partitions (including a Windows system partition) can be logical. Or, partitions can be primary on an MBR drive up to a maximum of four primary partitions, or three primary partitions plus one "extended partition" inside of which exist one or more logical partitions.
Anyway, I'm guessing the 128MB L partition is the "Microsoft Reserved Partition (MSR)", which is relevant for UEFI BIOS and from when the drive was formatted as GPT and is bootable (which yours is). But it's really just present to guarantee that there is no unallocated freespace on a bootable drive, and doesn't actually contain anything. As it stands it's small, and of a systems purpose relating to GPT, and has no business getting a drive letter or being considered for any other purpose than what it currently has... unless the drive is no longer formatted as GPT but is now MBR.
Most importantly, if we restructure things so that there is still no unallocated freespace on the drive, then we don't need that 128MB L partition. More on this later.
Also, your 260MB K partition (which is now shown as "active") must be where Boot Manager lives. Again, this is critical and vital, and again is small and with a specific system purpose. Again, it really should not have a drive letter, but again let's just ignore it for now. This is the one primary partition which MUST BE RETAINED and cannot be deleted. However it can be slid left or right without concern.
I would guess that your 1GB H partition is the Lenovo "recovery" partition, with the tools and content needed to restore your W540 to "factory" if you needed to. Again, it's too small to be of any use for the current topic. Just leave it alone if you ever think you might use it. My own practice is to take "system image" backups to an external USB 3.0 drive as my own "recovery method" (and I never expect to restore to "factory", but rather only possibly restore a "system image" backup say from last weekend, in the event of disaster which justifies such a restore as an extreme measure for recovery of a corrupted or destroyed Windows or upgrade to new hard drive). So for me, I always delete this "recovery" partition and simply absorb it space into the adjacent partition, but this is up to you.
Finally, your 464GB Win8 partition (C) is large and obviously consumes the rest of the drive. It is only from this partition that you can possibly manufacture space for another partition in which to install Win7.
So, given what we now know, here's what I would recommend you do using Partition Wizard (using standalone boot CD burned from ISO) :
(1) You don't need L, so delete it. Thus you now have only 3 primary partitions remaining along with the 128MB of now unallocated space (previously occupied by L). So your new partition for Win7 can actually now be PRIMARY or LOGICAL. Up to you, depending on whether or not you want yet another "data" partition as well..
(2) Resize C, from 464GB to say 200GB, by sliding its left edge boundary to the right, thus making available 164GB on its left (adjacent to the 128MB of free space from the deleted L). The sum of these two unallocated areas will now appear as one consecutive unallocated space in Partition Wizard. 200GB is actually larger than you probably need for a Win8 partition, especially if you want to create a "data" partition in which case the Win8 partition can be 100Gb or thereabouts. Up to you.
(3) Create a new partition for Win7 in the unallocated space. As I mentioned above, it can now be PRIMARY if you have no desire to add any additional partitions for "data", since by deleting PRIMARY L and re-sizing things you can create the new partition for Win7 as PRIMARY and still remain within the limit of four primary partitions on the drive. Or, if you also want to create a fifth "data" partition on the drive, then you need to allocate the new Win7 partition as LOGICAL in this 164GB space. Even if you don't want to have a fifth "data" partition, you can still create the new Win7 partition as LOGICAL.
(4) push APPLY, and Partition Wizard will do it all.
You also have other options, for example if you have no real need to retain that Lenovo "recovery" partition H. You can delete it (thus again dropping the count of primary partitions by 1), slide K all the way to the left (thus occupying the space previously occupied by H), still delete L, still resize C by moving its left edge boundary to the right as far as you want (thus ending up with a Win8 C partition of whatever size you want), and now you have the entire "middle" of the drive to create a Win7 partition (either PRIMARY or LOGICAL) as well as a "data" partition (also either PRIMARY or LOGICAL, still remaining within the max limit of four primary partitions).
It's all up to you, how large you keep the resized Win8 C, and whether or not you retain H, and whether or not you slide K to the left, and delete L, and then carve up the "middle" of the drive as you see fit to house just a Win7 partition or also to have one or more "data" partitions. You have complete freedom, although 500GB isn't that large a drive.
But you now see how you can delete things and resize things and move thiings. Note that you can also shrink/resize C to the right as I suggested, delete H and L, slide K to the right (right up against the shrunken C), and then allocate your new Win7 partition starting all the way at the left front of the drive.
Or, you can also reverse things... by deleting H and L, sliding K and C all the way to the left, shrink C by sliding its RIGHT EDGE BOUNDARY TO THE LEFT, and thus manufacture unallocated free space at the right side of the drive. In here you can then allocate your new Win7 partition and also "data" partition(s) if you want. Just be sure to use up all 100% of the drive in partitions (which shouldn't be a problem), to satisfy the UEFI BIOS.
You can do all of this with Partition Wizard booted from that standalone CD.
