I am trying to install mandrake distibution on a brand new notebook currently running just win XP.

The goal is to have a dual bootable machine...

So far I have:

1. installed linux and blown windows up.

2. reinstalled windows and blown linux

3. created a partition for windows and installed linux on a separate partition.

I am worried the windows recovery disks will just blow linux away again...

What shall I do?!!?

well first correctly partition your drive before doing anything ...
make sure you have the space designated as you want it ...
then when you have your space for windows and linux all set and are ready to install you will first insert the windows xp disk and install it ..
next, after that is all said and done throw the xp disk in the garba...i mean put the xp disk aside and grab your ?? linux disk (whichever distro it is) and fire it up and when you get to the partitioning screen and whatnot, select the rest of the space that you have left which was put a aside for linux ... and then sit back and let it go ....
next depending on your bootloader, when it does come up after the reboot, select the linux distro from it that you just installed, and when it boots up and you login, you will then open up your grub.conf file or lilo.conf file again depending on what bootload your going to be using, and edit it to have windows included in the options, and then save and run lilo or grub-install to reflect the changes, and now whenever you reboot you can choose between one or the other ...

the long and short of this is, is install windows first, linux second ...
just make sure when you install windows, that you don't use up all the space and leave none for linux ... plan out how much space you want for windows and whatever distro you have ...
so for example if you have a 20 gig drive and want 10 for each ... then make sure you leave 10 gigs of unpartitioned space for after your done the xp installation you will have the space for linux ....

Welcome to LinuxQuestions.

BTW It would be beneficial if your subject actually stated the problem, like I can't install linux vs help required. Also any additional information would be really helpful like what distribution your trying to install?

I take it you have recovery CDs and not the real XP install CD? then you will need to reinstall XP. The next step would be to resize the windows partition to create some unallocated space for linux.

If you want to install Mandrake, Redhat or SuSE then be sure to select install to free space.

Yep - that is the problem I only have "recovery" CDs rather than the XP installation disks so if I redo the installation this will blow my linux installation again :-(

The solution is then to:
1. install xp first (recovery disks)
2. resize the windows partition...HOW?!?
3. Install linux (mandrake in my case) to the free space created by point 2.

Thx for your help...

The MDK installer is capable of resizing NTFS partitions.
or
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/status.html#ntfstools