Hello,

currently, i am running xp and fc2 on hda while i have hdb partially used for xp.
on hdb there is still plenty of free space left and i want to take out of hdb for
another computer. i want to make a copy of my current fc2 system which means
i could boot an identical system on another machine without doing everything
from scratch. is it possible and how?
anything shall I be aware of?

thanks so much for your kind suggestion.

Use partimage.
http://www.sysresccd.org

Is it possible to copy a partition image into an empty partition of bigger than the original partition?

Yes. You can also burn it to a cd/dvd.

i went to the place and it seems the one i was looking for.
but before i proceed, i have a few more doubts :-)

1. as i mentioned, the second drive has ntfs partition and free space.
surely, i will restore to the free space with a new partition.
what will happen to the data on ntfs partition?
2. how to make sure the partition created using the free space has the
same size as the original? i noticed this on the handbook and i do not
want to waste too much space even though HD is cheap now.
but i am a poor and greedy person

1. as i mentioned, the second drive has ntfs partition and free space. surely, i will restore to the free space with a new partition. what will happen to the data on ntfs partition?

I guess nothing will happen, unless you explicitly tell it to.
But be aware of the limitations to create a new partition, 4 primaries, extendeds, etc...

2. how to make sure the partition created using the free space has the same size as the original? i noticed this on the handbook and i do not want to waste too much space even though HD is cheap now.

The new partition will be a clone of the original image you are restoring. If there's any space left after this, youy can create another one to use it.

sounds great!
oh btw, once i restore the system to the second drive, since it does not have
a bootable system installed, what probably shall I do so that the linux system
will be able to boot the computer?
change the grub configuration or something like that?

i am having some difficulty using partimage-0.6.4
my linux system is in /dev/hda5 and i want to make an image for it while running
inside fc2. but i was told the partition /dev/hda5 is mounted and it does not work for
mounted partition. but there is no way that i can umount the partition i am running.
what shall i do now?

here is what i got by "fdisk -l":
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 4 32098+ de Dell Utility
/dev/hda2 * 5 5226 41945715 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3 5227 5239 104422+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 5240 9729 36065925 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 5240 9599 35021668+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 9600 9729 1044193+ 82 Linux swap

Disk /dev/hdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 * 1 15438 124005703+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

This is why you'd better use sysresccd. Boot from cd and run partimage on your root unmounted.