Shrink Volume - Creating a new partition from an existing logical hard drive space
It's possible to create a new partition from existing hard drive space in Windows 7 through the use of something called the 'Disk Management' console and its Shrink Volume tool. This is particularly useful when you want to install a second operating system; the best example being 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 running on the same physical computer hardware. Virtual PC allows you similar functionality, but not the native OS aspect. As it's best to install 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems on separate hard drive partitions, this tip is handy because you can circumvent re-formatting and reinstalling the original OS data. The OS partition must have enough free space available that it can be split up. As always, be sure to back up your data first in case something goes wrong. To make a new partition from an existing OS hard drive partition: Go to the Control Panel and navigate to the 'System and Maintenance' tab, then 'Administrative Tools' and cli...