Hi guy
I had been using linux for about more than a year and now with 2 hdd but just a few day ago my linux hd started making some noise and then my mother board won't just recongise it anymore.I don't know what wrong but thing won't started up.So I started going back hda with xp on it which my dad use sometime
while he at home.I am seriously addited to linux now,since I am not a serious gamer I don't have love for the window.
So my question is my window is already in two partitions one (5 gig) for system
file and the the rest (75 g) is for data storage and 50 g is already use so if I want to put slackware 10 in remaining free space ,will it be safe and healthy for
the hd?or will it mess it up and shortnce it life?If so I 'll wait for chrismax and buy a new hdd there if not could I still use it for a long time?
my hardware specitifcation is

Amd (tm)xp 1800 + with crapy motherboard that overheat continusly (it chrew up all my ide cable once and I had to open it up and cool it with an actual big fan)
256 memory(guess no DDR)
64 mb nvidia mmx video card with LG flatron 775 ft moniter;
and of course 80 samsang st30011a with 5 g and 75 g each partitions;
the chrew up one is Seagate st320413a (20 g) having been using with my brother p3 computer but I had exchange it with my 40 g samsang because he started to feel need for space in his pc;
help me guy!
please!

Arkar kyaw Win

There's no technical reason why Linux and Windows can't coexist on the same hard-disk; most new distro installers will set that up for you quite well.

It's always a good idea to take a backup of any important data if you're resizing an existing partition.

The main problem is that hard disks have a finite lifetime; sooner or later they just stop working, as you found.

One trick you can do in Linux is to add the noatime option to the /etc/fstab file; this will significantly reduce disk usage if you're using a journelling filesystem like reiserfs or ext3, and thus prolong disk life (nothing ever uses the last access time of a file anyway, so why bother storing it?)

Another thing you might try is investing in a hard-disk cooler to extend the disk's life, especially if your case is overheating.

Hi man
Thank for the tip ,it turn out that my computer shop is willing to give me a credit for new hard disk .So I don't need to worry about re patitions my main hard disk.I had this idea that patiting your drive into to many partitions and putting up different OS in same HDD is a bad idea.I always thought that different OS in the same HDD would shorten your HDD life.But I never thought time and heat could also finish it off.
One Last questions,my seagate is 3 years old and in other computer it never get to reformat since we brought it.My brother had been using it for 3 years in roll on window xp.
I would like to know that wheter it is normal for hard disk like that to broke in this time frame.I mean , was it 3 year is enought to kill it?I thought slackware kill my seagate hdd.
was it possible?

thanks!!

Most hard-disks are guarenteed to last between 12 and 18 months under normal use (although some newer disks say things like not to use for more than 8 hours per day). So 3 years of life doesn't sound unreasonable. It all depends on the disk size, manufacturer, amount of use, and temperature.