Partitioning a primary hard drive for two OS's

[Guest]

Hi,
I have a single 40GB hard drive and I want to partition it. Windows XP Pro
is already installed on that drive. When I did the initial setup of XP, I
only made that singleprimary partition that consumed the entire drive. The
whole thing is formatted in NTFS. Now, I want to play around with a Linux
build, and I want to take 10GB of the free space on that hard drive and
create a partition so I can format it in a way that Linux can read it. How
can I do this? I tried Computer Management/Disk Management but it did not
allow me to do this. What are my options?

Thanks,
-Randy

 

[Randy Harris]

If you wish to repartition without losing the data on your initial
partition, the only option is third party. Partition Magic is the best, but
there are others.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Randy,

Most iterations of Linux include drive tools that will allow you to carve
out some free space on the existing drive. Otherwise, you will need to use a
third-party tool to do this.

Boot Managers and Partitioning programs:

BootIT NG www.terabyteunlimited.com
Partition Magic www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic
Partition Commander http://www.v-com.com/product/pc_ind.html
Ranish Partition Manager http://www.ranish.com/part/

The first one, BootIT NG, would be my choice. You don't need to install it,
but rather just create the floppy and boot from it. At setup, cancel out and
go into maintenance. There you can shrink the existing partition and create
the needed ext partitions for the Linux installation.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Alex Nichol]

I have a single 40GB hard drive and I want to partition it. Windows XP Pro
is already installed on that drive. When I did the initial setup of XP, I
only made that singleprimary partition that consumed the entire drive. The
whole thing is formatted in NTFS. Now, I want to play around with a Linux
build, and I want to take 10GB of the free space on that hard drive and
create a partition so I can format it in a way that Linux can read it. How
can I do this?

Short of cleaning the disk off completely and starting over, you will
need a third party Partition Manager. What I use is BootIT NG, from
http://www.BootitNG.com ($35 shareware - 30 day full functional trial)

Download, to its own folder, extract from the zip, run the bootitng to
make a boot floppy.

Boot the floppy, Cancel Install, entering maintenance, then click on
Partition work. Highlight your C: and use Resize. Leave the released
space free for the Linux setup to partition.

You might also find it useful as its Primary role of boot manager,
rather than using lilo or grub (in that case install whichever in the
root Linux partition)