Does anyone know how I can partition an external hard disk on my laptop in either Windoze or Linux? I would like it to be GUI based, since thats what Im comfortable with. Basically, I want to have a FAT32 partition for me to be able to read and write to in Linux and Windows on the rare occasion that I use it. I just want this to be on the external USB 2.0 HD that Ive got. It would only have to be, say 5 gigs or so, but I dont want to lose the data on my disk. Any suggestions?

Some good ones are:
* Partition Magic (commercial)
* GParted
* QtParted (included in Knoppix and SystemRescueCd)

What version of windows do you have? in xp pro (not sure about home) you can do it through /control panel/administstative tools/computer management/disk management. as for linux im not sure, as im just downloading SuSE now for the first time.

Ive got XP pro, but I didnt see it in there

You can see it because it hasn't been partitioned and so XP will not mount it. XP does not mount an unpartitioned blank disk or a disk foreign to itself.

In XP just right click my computer then click

/mange/storage/disk management

to see the disk, then create the FAT32 partition and format it.

In Linux use cfdisk in shell because it is available in every Linux except Red Hat where it is sfdisk. You do a fdisk -l in root terminal first to see all the disks and partitions in the box. Being an external drive it will feature as a sda or sdb.

Use cfdisk to create the partition, click Type to select type b for FAT32, write it and quit.

You need a reboot to make the DOS partition effective, thereafter just use mkefs to format the partition.

Maybe I should have been more clear. It is already formatted in NTFS, and basically, I just want to shrink that part and add a FAT32 onto it, for swap purposes. I dont see a way to do that in Windows, and Im too scared to try it via commandline, because I dont want to lose all my data.

For XP You need a 3rd party software call Partition Magic to resize the partition.

I couldn't advise on Linux but QParted, QtParted and even Diskdrake can do it but I never try it myself.

Not so sure of a swap partition via a USB cable either as Linux needs a special kernel to "slow down" in order to match the low USB transmission rate.

Well, its not swap, but it is, if that makes sense. My laptop disk has a swap on it already, but I basically want one that I can read and write to from both OS. Ill try to find partition magic floating around.

Alternatively just borrow another hdd with space to copy your files across, remove the NTFS partition, create a FAT32, format it and put everything back.

A FAT32 partition can permit both read and write by XP and Linux. All of my data is one large FAT32 with 250Gb accessible by all systems.