Solved Does creating a new partition erase any files?

If you use Vista's built-in partition tool, do you risk deleting files? I used Easeus partition manager with an XP system. When I tried to restart, windows gave me "system32 hal.dll is missing or corrupted". I re-installed XP but I want to create a new partition on my Vista system so I can use Window 7 beta. Does this happen much when creating new partitions? I have had good luck with Easeus with two other systems. Am I better off using Vista's tool? Is there a chance I will loose a system file?

Hello Nate,

If done properly you should not lose anything. To be safe, you should always keep backups of anything you do not want to lose though.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/95398-disk-management-shrink-partition.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thanks for the reply Brink. I wonder why a system file was lost when creating a partition in XP. I don't want that to happen in Vista. That was a nightmare. I installed Virtual PC on my Vista machine and put Windows 7 on that. I guess I'll try this out. It's not the same thing. I would rather dual-boot. Thank you for the link to the tutorial. Have a great day.

You're welcome Nate. May have had something to do with the 3rd party program and/or the boot file being changed.