Received my new dell inspiron 1501 laptop with 120 GB Fujitsu SATA HD a few days ago. First thing I did was use QtParted to resize partition so I could dual boot FedoraCore 6 64-bit.

The included OS is Vista Basic. AMD 64X2 tl56 processor supports 64-bit OS.

After resize,Vista could not boot in any mode, restore partition could not be accessed, recovery DVD would not function.

1&1/2 hrs. with dell support yielded no improvement. I was told Vista & Linux were not compatible. It was suggested that even XP/Vista dual boot might not work!

Their solution-exchange hd for a new one!

I used QtParted again to delete all partitions. This allowed the recovery DVD to be read. As I installed Vista I used the installer to partition the hd so windows would be happy.(I have done many,many partitions with XP using QtParted no problem.)

Fedora core 6 64-bit installer would not recognize my HD so I could not try the dual boot.

I then tried using my desktop(AMD 64) to dual boot Vista Premium 64-bit & Fedora Core 64-bit with no problems.

I followed up with installing XP home on the laptop in a 10 GB partition just to try it. Worked fine with room for Fedora,if I can find a way to have Fedora see my hd. Knoppix 5.0 recognized my touchscreen & my hd no problem.

Hope this warning & solution helps others.

The open source community is great! (I need windows for quickbooks)

Never used Vista yet but maybe the ntfs has changed again ( Microsoft is constiantly tweaking and hacking ntfs filesystem) and maybe qtparted does not have support for a newer filesystem ntfs hack. Contact parted developers and see what their input is there.

Brian

When using any disk utilities even Partition Magic, it is require to backup the data. If you forget to do this step, gremlins will get you.

I read that Vista will not accept other OS, so I suggest using separate hard drives. Unfortunately, you can not do this on a notebook computer although there are brands selling notebooks that can accept two hard drives at a cost of an optical drive.

If you need Windows, use VMware. Though there are many Quickbook like programs in Linux.

I will not and never will buy Vista, so you are on your own.

WHEW! I'm SOOO glad I got my Inspiron 1501 (Dual Core AMD Turion 64) a month before Vista came out. It came with XP Home preinstalled, had no problems at all resizing partition with GParted for an OpenSUSE 10.2 install (which I'm using at this moment to type this...) Guess I won't be doing a Vista upgrade anytime soon. Thanks for the post - I was seriously considering the upgrade until I read that.

Update to my post.

I said XP/Vista dual boot worked fine, I was premature. Works, but booting XP erases restore points in Vista even though on separate partitions.

Will try XP on virtual machine inside of Vista.

Will try VMware in linux to run vista for QuickBooks. I looked but did not find linux quickbooks type programs except online programs=no thanks.

There are a few listed on http://www.osalt.com/. The program that is not listed is KMyMoney.