Now that Vista has been out for a while, has anyone found a way to put it on a hard drive partition without having it take over the computer? I have a 100 Gb hard drive and want to give Vista 20 leaving the rest for linux. At present my computer is all linux but once in a while I encounter a web site that requires Windows.

It is no different than dual booting any other Windows OS. It is always best to install Windows first, then install Linux, then configure the Linux boot loader (grub or lilo) to boot Windows. The boot loader entry needed for Vista is no different than the one needed for XP, no black magic involved.

Here is what I use to boot Vista, it is the default install that came with this laptop, I just shrunk the partition and put ArchLinux beside it.

I haven't played with this for quite a while. However as I remember it, doing what you suggested did not work. Therefore, let me review the steps and see if I understand them.

1) Install Vista on entire hard drive
2) Use gparted to shrink the partition
3) Use gparted to create new linux partitions (I want at least two)
4) Then install linux using grub

It seems that I tried this before, but I will attempt to do it again.

Hey sheine don't bother with shrinking partitions. Just split your drive in two. 20g for vista and just leave the rest untouched. Linux will see the rest of the hard drive when you install it. I am assuming you have a blank drive. I never installed vista but I assume its like installing xp.
Good Luck!

It seems to me that I tried that. As I remember when I tried to install Vista, it insisted on the whole disk, otherwise it did not install but kept taking me back to the starting point.

At present, I have only linux distributions on my hard drive.

Use Gparted to partition the hard drive before you even put the Vista disk in the computer. In GParted, set one partition to be formatted as NTFS, and format another partition with a Linux File System. Vista will never see that second partition. It will only take over the NTFS partition.

By far the easiest method I have used on several computers was to install Vista and then use Vista's " disk management tool" to shrink the NTFS partition.

When the shrink process to the size you want Vista is finished you will have "unallocated free space" left on the drive and you can install Linux to that. I have done it using Fedora 6,7 and 8 and let the installer create a "default" partition setup it was quite painless and smooth.

You can use a partitioning tool if you want and "carve" your free space to any configuration but if you are unsure of "how" then use the default install to the free space.

Oddly enough I tried every method recommended here without success when I first bought the computer. Maybe it was the OEM version of software that came with the computer.

Now I intend to buy another computer with a large hard drive. Maybe with a different brand these ideas will work.

When I tried to use Vista's Disk Management utilities, it would not allow me to shrink the Vista Partition more than 5Gigs, even though I had 60Gigs available. That's bunk. It also does not allow you to move partitions the way that GParted or QTParted allow you to. Ultimately, you're better off having the drive partitioned in advance (whether you format the Linux partition or not) before you install Vista or XP for that matter. They will only recognize the NTFS partition. Windows is not smart enough to recognize other file systems, so it will only think the hard drive is as big as the NTFS partition, that's why I prefer to go ahead and make the second partition ext2/3 and then during the install of Linux split it up into other partitions swap/root/var/home/etc...

This is closer to my experience.

Mine was straightforward and simple using "disk management tool" with Acer and Sony computers. No problem shrinking NTFS more than 30 GB and then installing Fedora.

Just like everything with Linux on various hardware configurations YMMV!

Try QParted in Knoppix to shrink your NTFS partition, then install Linux, and be sure to install GRUB in the MBR.

Be sure to backup all your valuable data, or consider using something like Nero BackItUp to burn an "image" of your entire Vista system to DVDs.

Following some suggestions here and using partition magic I created an NTFS partition. I then used my vista recovery disk, OEM. The first thing that it said was that it will wipe out all data on my hard drive. Since I did not want to lose my linux partitions, I stopped right there.

Sounds like you are on the right track now. It should only wipe data from the (drive)partition you are installing to. I have not installed vista yet myself I don't think it will see your linux partitions. If it would it should be unknown format to vista. Hope you get it installed. Nothing ventured nothing gained.

Funny how things always go wrong. I just bought a new computer with Vista preinstalled. I was then able to use gparted to partition it. I now have it dual booting Vista and pclinuxos. This settles the question of this thread.

However, I have had trouble with three linux distributions on the computer.
pclinuxos - can't get a proper screen resolution or get an internet connection with my DSL
Simply mepis - wont install at all
Ubuntu -live CD installs and makes internet connection. However when I try to install it to my hard drive it stops at 42% of the installation.

I guess that there is a lot of work ahead of me.

Thanks for the help with this problem.