Procedure for dual booting (2 copies of Win-7) off 2 partitions on same disk

Posted by Sam Holder on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Sam Holder
Published on 2012-04-10T10:14:21Z Indexed on 2012/04/10 11:33 UTC
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windows-7

|

partitioning

|

dual-boot

What procedure should I follow to set a dual boot (both Win-7 x64) on a machine where (ideally):

Both operating systems will be installed on the same physical disk in different partitions
When booting into either operating system the contents of the other OS partition disk will not be seen (this just seems safer)
Other hard drives in the system will be visible by both OS's

1 copy of Win7 is already installed.

Is it as simple as shrinking the existing volume and creating the partition, then sticking the CD in and booting off it and formatting the new partition and then installing another copy of windows onto the new partition? Or will that not work? Or are there gotchas?

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