partitioning winXP for linux

[rhdb52]

Hey everybody,

I have Windows XP installed on my 80gig hd and i wanted to partition it so i could run Linux also. Ive read up on it alot and it seems like i can only use partitionmagic for it. I dont want to spend money on the program to partiton the NTFS format so Mandrake 9.0 can run. I was wondering how to free 10gigs of my hd to put linux on it. I heard u need to resize the partition, but im not sure how to do that. I'm pretty confused and any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Also, do i need to get LILO or does it come with Mandrake 9.0 so i can do the dual boot?

Thanks

[MaXimum SMOKE]

Can you get an old hard drive out of an old computer? Doesn't have to be fancy. Four gigs or better is more than adequate. Linux would install to, and run off of a slave drive. The bootstrap loader is included with the distribution, yes.

[rhdb52]

alright...thanks...im in college right now and i cant get hold of a HD, but when i go home for thanksgiving in a couple weeks i can get one off an old PC, i think i have one thats about 6 gigs.

[mikeL]

rhdb52, I've always used linux to setup a partition on my W2K disk. Once you boot with the CD you will come to the Disk Drake portion of the setup. so you don't really need a third party program.

[MaXimum SMOKE]

Mike, if you could elaborate on this, I am sure it would be of benefit to many, as XP, and the NTFS file systems are becoming very popular. The last info I have must be very 'dated' as the technology is changing very rapidly these days.

http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/#2.6

2.6 How do I resize an NTFS Volume?


Unfortunately there aren't any free programs to resize an NTFS Volume. This is a big problem for the Linux Install programs.


One non-free program that can resize NTFS is Partition Magic from: powerquest.com
-------------------------------

I thought the above still held true ?

[keifir]

i thought ranish partition manager was able to resize NTFS...
it's free - and very useful. Just make sure to RTFM before doing anything

[rhdb52]

i checked out ranish partion manager.....it can't resize NTFS
It can resize Windows XP if it was Fat32 though.

[mikeL]

sorry, forgot XP is NTFS, you are going to need partition magic to resize your hard drive.

[LimeGreenPatato]

First of all, who said you needed to buy partition magic? I'm pretty sure you can do when you install linux off the boot disk, without losing any data. It was along time ago, when i installed it at school, but i'm pretty sure we were well into the semester when we installed it and i didn't lose any data.

[David_Jones]

I believe that PartEd can resize an NTFS partition, and it is totally free (GNU / GPL), very fast, and has never let me down (yet)!

It is a Linux app, but you can run it off a boot disk, so pretty much irrelevant that it runs under Linux.

Normal caveat - RTFM and backup ALL the data, or image your existing disk so that you can always return to your current position if the worst happens (and assume it will!)

HTH,

David.