I was thinking. When i get windows 7, say I was to partition my XP's HDD, half and half. Thats about 250 gigs per OS. When I go to install windows 7, is it still gonna format the XP's side of the HDD? I was told when you install a new OS, it formats. I've never done it before, so I wouldnt know.

Thanks in advance.

As long as you select the correct partition during the lead up to Win 7's actual installation, the XP partition will not be formatted. I dual boot XP & Win 7 RC on one of my computers and had no problems with the install of 7.

u can select to leave current intact or different and can select which drive to install to so there is no problem.Just make sure u do not install to xp partition but the other partition which is empty

To do it first backup?

It should work but as its new you cant be sure the problem is win7 creates 2 partitions not one. It creates a 100-200 meg partition for its self so there is a danger it could destroy others.

One way around it is to install win 7 to a vhd. A vhd is a file used by virtual pc but win7 lets you actually boot from it as you would from a partition for a full video on how to do this see

Boot from VHD in Win7 | Media | TechNet Edge