So I've got a new laptop and I'd like to play around with Windows 10. But I can't afford to muck about with my main install. I'd like to set up a new partition and dual boot. But I haven't repartitioned a drive in ages. The last time I did this was with a program called partition magic which now seems to be no longer published. A quick search leads to a wide variety programs and I've got no idea where to start now.

In any case this is how my drive looks now:

Disk Management pic

Not sure about the multiple recovery partitions there. I've set up a bootable USB drive for that in any case.

So I'd like, I think, to consolidate down to just the EFI and the two OS partitions. Does that sound correct?

Any suggestions are more than welcome!

Thanks!

EDIT: Not sure how to imbed the image.

You don't need to resort to partitioning to have a play with Windows 10:

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/GuideToIns...alHardDisk.aspx

Or use VirtualBox

Thanks, I might give the VirtualBox a try. I just learned that my brother recently got a laptop also I might grab his old Dell and play around with that instead. Probably less headache inducing as I can just walk away if it doesn't work!

VirtualBox works well. I haven't tried it with Windows 10 yet, but I've used it for several other virtual machines before and it's really good.

Let us know what you think of 10. I downloaded the ISO but haven't had time to play with it.

Well just as a follow up to this, I'm typing this on Windows 10 from my laptop. I tried the VirtualBox solution, but it killed my network card and I couldn't connect to either my normal main OS even when it wasn't running or to get Windows 10 installed.

I searched and found a partitioning tool that actually worked really well, IM Magic.

After much fussing about with boot order sequences, safe boot settings, and the like I finally managed to get it installed.

I'm pretty impressed so far. I wasn't one who minded the spilt personality of Win 8 and now I'm using a convertible laptop (HP Spectre x360) so the touch interface comes in handy.

There are some glitches about, but overall very usable. System seems snappy and battery life has been good. I like the new look of the OS it's clean and efficient. The new start screen I'm not quite sold on yet, I need to tinker around with it and see if I can get it to where I can see the apps I need and in the correct order.