First time here....Still trying to get Linux (Suse) installed on my computer. I have a new hard drive that was partitioned when it was installed. When I tried to install Linux, the installation stopped when it encountered the partition. That was several days ago, and I don't remember the exact message, but it was something to the effect that it didn't like the partition on the hard drive.

Am I going to have to format the hard drive to get rid of the partition?

It's a 40 GB drive, partitioned at 30 & 10 Gb (roughly). It has Windows ME on the D (10 Gb) side and Windows XP on the C partition (30 Gb). Don't blame me. My son-in-law "did me a favor" and installed and partitioned it for me while I was at work.

What do I do now?
Thanks.

Are you going to install it over the top of one of your Winbloze installs, or are you wanting to partition up that space some more and put SuSE in the free space? Or something else...?

He "did you a favor".

WinMe is FAT32. It's easier to install dual-booting on FAT32 than NTFS(2K/XP).

Depends on what you want to do with the HD.

How about 10gig ME, 10gig XP, 10gig FAT32 D:\my doc and 10gig Linux? If that's ok with you, reinstall XP and remove everything except 10gig ME. Rebuild them. Leave the last 10gig empty for Linux.

And if that's the course you will be taking (the 10GB for everyone), you can hopefully still save your files and such. Some of your settings will be lost, but those are a lot easier to get back than files. So, first off, I'd transfer those files from XP to WinME. Next up, go d/l this partitioning utility. I haven't used it, but it has had good reviews from some LQ members.
Next (after you repartition), transfer the files from your ME partition to your new 10GB Fat32 partition (I am guessing Win Drive E or so). Now you can use that to save you files next time winbloze crashes and it needs to reinstalled, and to transfer files back and forth from Linux to winbloze.

Ok, and this is important...

Remember the drive order when installing SuSE. During partitioning if you put the first 10 as NTFS for XP, the second 10 for Fat32 for ME, 3rd Fat32 for Shared/backup files, and 4th for SuSE, then during the install make sure that your / is on /dev/hda4 and not /dev/hda or /dev/hda1,2,3 Otherwise it will wipe out your current data.