[SOLVED] Need help with installing 2nd drive

The drive enclosure that Nibiru finally arrived today, and in all of 10 minutes, it was put together, plugged in to test it, it shows fine. I want to be able to boot into this drive, and install other OS's. I need to know how to set this up. But I do have one problem that needs to be resolved beforehand. I installed my recovery partition on here, and loaded the original system. Then I tried to "shrink" it, to allow me plenty of space. But out of this large drive, even after defragmenting, it would only allow me to shrink by 200,000 something MB. But this is my problem, and why I even brought this up. I have 7 Ultimate (for the BitLocker deal). After setting up a dual boot (Pro & Ultimate), clean install, it looks and runs better than with the OEM install. It's no longer on here, except the recovery partition itself. I setup BitLocker, and tested it on a USB flash drive. It wouldn't work, something about a TPM module. Well, when I installed my 2nd drive on here, when I clicked Computer (to the right of the Start Menu), BitLocker appeared at the bottom of the screen. Then, when I removed the drive, it disappeared. Is my being able to use BitLocker tied to my OEM install? Should I attempt to "shrink" the OEM install on my second drive, and leave it there? The only thing that I do know, the program that makes it run must be in my OEM install, otherwise, why did it show up? This is overshadowing my other concern, how to boot into the drive. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

OK, I'm doing one thing here, if it will help. On my new drive, I have Pro installed on a 100GB partition (the first one). I'm currently backing up the original install from the 2nd hard drive (the system and HP partition). Being that I'm primarily using Ultimate, can I do whatever it takes to move this backup to my new drive (on the first partition), so that I'll have all of my needed drivers to install and use BitLocker? Then, get the drive going, so that I can add my other OS's. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get this to work. If I have to "shrink" the original drive, I'll do that. But I'm trying to prepare for whatever may needs to be done.

What is the enclosure? e-sata, usb or both? Firewire? AC powered adapter?

Can you describe exactly how your partitions are laid out. Drive sizes, partition sizes and corrisponding OS's for each? Boot order and also what you want the end result to be?

The enclosure is a USB one. There are no other options. It is AC powered, cuts off with a switch. The drive in it contains my original install, as Clifford advised me not to do anything with it until everything is right. It also contains my recovery partition, which I want to leave there, in case I want to sell the computer. The HP image on it is about 30GB total, counting the 100MB system partition, the partition is 286GB total. The recovery partition has been copied to this new drive, using Macrium. On the new drive, there is a 100GB partition containing 7 Pro, a 200GB partition containing 7 Ultimate, approximate half of my new drive is empty (by design), as I want to install the beta of the next Windows on it. The boot order is Ultimate first, Pro second. I've tried to install BitLocker, but couldn't, because something from the original drive is not here. But when the new drive is plugged in, the option is there for it. I want this second drive to be used for Linux. Is there anyway that I can take the backup that I just created with Macrium (the 100MB system image and the HP install), and somehow place it on the partition where Pro is now? I tried doing this the easy way, using the recovery and it worked. But I couldn't shrink the partition anymore than 200,000MB, even after defrag. I hope this is enough to help information to get started with. PS: The Pro partition is "D" drive, Ultimate is "C" drive. I'm currently backing up "C" drive (Ultimate) with Macrium (disc image).

Do the pro and ultimate each have the 100MB partitions? Do you know about the 4 primary partition limit?

No, I'm looking where you can do partitioning, the only 100MB is on Pro (D), the first partition. I'm almost through doing a disc image of the Ultimate (C) partition, in case it's needed.

Where are keeping all these Macrium images?

It's 1:00 am! I must get some sleep now.

This is my understanding of the 100MB partition.

The 100MB partition contains the boot files and Vista Boot Loader. Professional and Ultimate would share this 100MB partition. The purpose behind this 100MB partition is to allow the computer to boot to a small partition that is not encrypted while allowing the main partition to be encrypted. Hence the program Bitlocker. Once you select which partition to boot to from there, Bitlocker will decrypt and continue to boot.

If you have no intention in using bitlocker this 100MB partition is not needed. I for one don't have it. I find it needlessly taking one of my primary partitions. We are only alloted 4 primary partitions per hard disk.

I do intend to use BitLocker, this is what I'm trying to achieve, I've set it up, the key is in my backup drive. But when I tested it a couple of days ago on a flash drive, it wouldn't work. Then, after I got this second (my original drive) going, the BitLocker options are there. There must be something in the original drive that contains the needed files for this to work. I know it said something about a TPM was corrupt or missing. It's on my original install.

BitLocker makes use of a hardware chip called a Trusted Platform Module or TPM. When you turn on the computer, BitLocker communicates with the TPM to make sure the Operating System hasn’t been tampered with. If everything is ok, BitLocker then sends a key to the software on your hard drive, allowing it to boot.

From Wikipedia:
Operation
Contrary to the official name, BitLocker Drive Encryption is a logical volume encryption system. A volume may or may not be an entire drive, and can span one or more physical drives. Also, when enabled TPM/Bitlocker can ensure the integrity of the trusted boot path (e.g. BIOS, boot sector, etc.), in order to prevent most offline physical attacks, boot sector malware, etc.

In order for BitLocker to operate, the hard disk requires at least two NTFS-formatted volumes: one for the operating system (usually C and another with a minimum size of 100MB from which the operating system boots. BitLocker requires the boot volume to remain unencrypted—on Windows Vista this volume must be assigned a drive letter, while on Windows 7 it does not. Unlike previous versions of Windows, Vista's "diskpart" command-line tool includes the ability to shrink the size of an NTFS volume so that the system volume for BitLocker can be created from already-allocated space. A tool called the "Bitlocker Drive Preparation Tool" is also available from Microsoft that allows an existing volume on Windows Vista to be shrunk to make room for a new boot volume, and for the necessary bootstrapping files to be transferred to it;[12] Windows 7 creates the secondary boot volume by default, even if Bitlocker is not used initially.

Once an alternate boot partition has been created, the TPM module needs to be initialized (assuming that this feature is being used), after which the required disk encryption key protection mechanisms such as TPM, PIN or USB key are configured. The volume is then encrypted as a background task, something that can take a considerable amount of time with a large disk as every logical sector is read, encrypted and rewritten back to disk. Only once the whole volume has been encrypted are the keys protected, and the volume considered secure. BitLocker uses a low-level device driver to encrypt and decrypt all file operations, making interaction with the encrypted volume transparent to applications running on the platform.

Encrypting File System may be used in conjunction with BitLocker to provide protection once the operating system kernel is running. Protection of the files from processes/users within the operating system can only be performed using encryption software that operates within Windows, such as Encrypting File System. BitLocker and Encrypting File System therefore offer protection against different classes of attacks.[13]

In Active Directory environments, BitLocker supports optional key escrow to Active Directory, although a schema update may be required for this to work (i.e. if the Active Directory Directory Services are hosted on a Windows version previous to Windows Server 2008).

Other systems like BitLocker can have their recovery key/password entry process spoofed by another bootmanager or OS install. Once the spoofed software captured the secret, it could be used to decrypt the VMK, which would then allow access to decrypt or modify any information on the user's BitLocker-encrypted hard disk. By configuring a TPM to protect the trusted boot pathway, including the BIOS and boot sector, this threat can be removed.