I'm working on setting up a dual boot system, and I need to find out what the best partitioning software is. I'm currently using XPSP2 soley (see why I want to switch) and a Baracuda 200Gig drive. I will most likey set 100/100gig partitions. So to get to the actual question, what partitioning software is best for this set-up?

If you boot the Mandriva CD for example, it will run a partition manager at some point, where you can reorganize your disk.
I find Mandriva's partitionning tool very easy to use.

When you install Linux, don't forget that you should have at least 2 partitions (swap, and /), and if possible 3 (swap, /, and /home).

Yves.

Hmm, but Windows XP eliminates any Dual boots on install, so I have to install Windows first (unless there is a way around it I'm not yet aware of).

Hi,
Yes, it is better to install Windows first. You can do it next, but have to configure your
boot manager afterwards.
cfdisk (present on lots of LiveCDs) is a convenient tool to set up your partitions if the
distro you install seems confusing for partition management.
One CD I find very useful to do that : the first CD of Slackware. It has never let me do
down and always boots up fine, whereas Knoppix (ehmm) sometimes doesn't.

Hope it helps
Regards

Alright, thanks, I'll look into and see if it works out.

The best partitioning tool in Linux to me has to be cfdisk which is available in the majority of distro. fdisk is not far off and the two together form a formidable pair.

The good thing about cfdisk is you can physically see every partition you create as you go along and how Linux name them.

I always partition my hard disk first before installations. One 200Gb IDE hard disk has 43 and the other 200Gb IDE got 40 partitions. Sata disks are only allowed 15 partitions maximum in Linux.

I have only two distros (FC2 and Mandriva 2006 0.2) ever complaining about the 5Gb partition is too tight for them. All the rest go into a 5Gb partition happliy. You have to mix your Linux with your personal data in order to use a space of 100Gb.

Personally I rather leave my personal data in its own partition accessible by all systems. That way your Linux should hardy grow in size.

Remeber you don't have to fully partition a hard drive and empty partitions can be left alone until you have distros to fill them.