Format System Reserved Partition when installing second instance of Windows 8.1

Question

I have Windows 8.1 installed on one partition.

Now I want to install a second instance of Windows 8.1 on another partition, but the setup says there is not enough space on the system partition.

My system reserved partition has 500 MB, but only 6 MB free space.

My question now is: Can I format the system reserved partition, will the second installation write the required data for booting etc on the system reserved partition?

Or will I loose my boot information of the first installed instance of Windows 8.1? If yes, can I restore this information by adding entries to the boot tab in msconfig?

Answer 1

First part of answer is: Please google what a system reserved partition is.

As you are asking the question, its safe to assume that you don't want to go messing around with it.

I would also ask - why two Copies of the same version of windows? Surely whatever you have in mind would be easier if you simply created a 2nd user? If not, please tell me as I am intrigued :)

If you are wanting to do a dual boot setup, you are often best off setting up your hard drive before you install any OS's. You will need an empty partition on your hard drive (that ISNT system reserved) at the very least - you may be able to "shrink" your existing partition to create space.

Another potential option is to look at virtual machines which will allow you to have OS's inside of windows.. depending on why you are wanting to do this.