I know that there are already several threads of this topic currently active, all of which have been very useful to me, however I still have plenty of confusion and questions left to justify a new thread. I am sure it will be useful to others as well, sooner or later.

I have a Lenovo z510 with pre installed windows 8.1 (x64)

Before I can begin to install slackware, I need to create backup media. I have some 8.5gb dvd+r on hand that I was hoping to use.
All i really care to backup is windows8.1 and whatever else I need for my laptop to function. Meaning I don't have any work/files/pictures/ et cetera. So if something goes terribly wrong, I just start anew.
Because windows came pre installed, I cannot use my product key (which I found using BeLarc Advisor. I found this very useful)to create an install dvd with Windows 8.1 Setup (which is for retail bought apparently).
On the D:/ is labeled "Lenovo" and is approx. 2.5gb, and has "one key recovery" files, along with McAfee, and some other programs that came preinstalled.
Other Partitions are:
WINRE_DRV NTFS 345.5MB,
SYSTEM_DRV FAT32 32.5MB (EFI System Partition)
LRS_ESP FAT32 501MB,
PBR_DRV NTFS 9.5GB,
C: Windows8_OS NTFS 41.13GB
also an unnamed, filesystem: "other", 128MB Reserved Partition.

Another pre-install question I have is of the disc partitions.
After I shrink the primary windows C:/ partition, do I need to format the new partition to prep it for Linux? Can I leave it unallocated?

Thanks to anyone who is willing to help out.

When you shrink the Windows partition, the space that is released will be "free space." Partitions will need to be created and formated for Linux in the "free space."

It's perfectly okay to create these as extended partitions. Windows demands to be installed on primary partitions; Linux doesn't care.

Several months ago, there was along thread about Slackware (the current release was 14.0 at the time) and Windows 8. I did not plough through it, but you might find something useful. Pat contributed to it.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...fi-4175448945/

I don't think uefi gpt partitions use or need an extended partition. I had read some where that Windows 8 requires the first partition to be the fat32 efi partition and the 128mb reserved partition as the second partition. However, I don't know if this is true or just based on how the windows installer setups partitions during a clean install. Here is a link to some more info about efi gpt partitioning: http://askubuntu.com/questions/35368...ng-for-dummies

Another option that I've used with a new laptop is to replace the original disk drive. With a scratch disk in place I can experiment as much as I want and not worry about destroying the "factory new" aspect of the Laptop. (with a few exceptions such as setting the clock)

I can also connect the original disk drive and a scratch disk drive to another computer and make a duplicate (dd) of the original disk. I can then put the copy back in the newly purchased laptop and learn how to expand/contract disk space, dual boot, change boot loaders, etc, without worrying about modifying the original disk drive.

The cost for all this freedom to explore is just the price of a second disk drive.

Others may know of some "gotchas" with this approach using new hardware designs, but this strategy has served me well in the years past.

EDIT: This strategy didn't work when the disk drive was protected in unusual way. For example I believe the TIVO series 1 disks were locked to only show a small capacity drive. They had to be unlocked before you could duplicate and play with them. I don't know if manufacturers are playing these kind of games with the "OS restore" section of disk drives these days.

i gave up on dual boot and opted to back up windows8.1 to dvd, and delete it all together.