window on second partition?
 

First, I dumped my windows ME and installed knoppix on my hard drive. It worked great, except that my printer doesn't have a driver for Linux. So I did a dual-boot, putting windows ME on partition 1, and Lindows on partition 2 (a friend had loaned me a lindows disk, so I thought I'd try it out). Windows worked fine, but Lindows didn't recognize my cablemodem, and I couldn't find it under /dev or anything. So I figured the problem was with Lindows, since Knoppix had worked fine. I dumped the Lindows and put knoppix on partition 2, and still didn't get the cable. Same problem.
Then a knowlegeable friend told me that Windows won't share the cable with another OS if it's in the first partition, and that what I needed to do was dump everything, and put linux on the first, and Windows on the second.

What I need to know is, is this true, and if so, how do I get windows into the second partition; every tutorial I read says it has to go on the first.

I've looked through all the forums, and if the answers there, I'm missing it.
Any help will be very much appreciated. Thank you.

My understanding is that MS have set up windows to always delete anything else that's already on the disk so I don't think you will be able to put it in any other partition except first and then fill the rest of the harddrive.

Yes. Windows9x / ME / 2000 have to be installed on the first partition of a Hard Disk Drive (not sure about XP).

As for your cable modem, it has nothing to do with partitions -- Unless I misunderstood your post.

Also, Linux does not care about what type of cable modem you have, only the Network Card is important.
CableModems use Ethernet, so it should work; unless Linux does not support your Network Card.

My cable modem is connected to a USB port. I don't have ethernet. Still, it worked perfectly before, when I just had Knoppix installed, without Windows.