I want to create a dual boot system with win98 and rh7.3. I installed windows and now want to install rh. I need to shrink the windows partition and create one for linux. What tool would you recommend using for this? I know I can get partition magic for $70, but I want to know if there is anything that can do this for free. Thanks for your help.

That $70 is better spent buying a book to show you how to do it using the free tools which come bundled with every linux distribution.

Shrinking a partition is a matter of moving all the information to the front of the disk (possibly using defrag.exe) and then running a small dos program to non-destructively split the single partition. Then erase the partition which doesn't have any information on it and you're ready to install Linux.

But I would always buy a book first. There is a free lunch but you have to pay the bookseller to learn about it.

Bert

I have been looking for tools for windows that will do it for free since I can not install linux until after I create the partitions. I can not find any. Can someone please point me in the right direction? Thanks.

The expensive partitioning tools are a front end for a clever DOS program called fips.

Consider buying a book though. It saves a lot of time.

Bert

Depending on what version of Winbloze you have, and what filesystem you decided to use on it, you may not (I think) be able to use FIPS. I think FIPS can only resize fat filesystems. Check out this page, there are dozens of options there, but specifically I think some people have mentioned/recommended this one.

Also, take a peek at this post:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=26801

The same idea is sort of addressed, of course, all this depends on which filesystem you have.

You might also take a peek at this page for Mikhail Ranish's partition editor.

All partition editing involves the very real risk of losing your data. Read the instructions, ask if you have questions, back up all your critical data, then think about it again.

Partition editing is not impossible, just risky if done incorrectly.

What you should have done was before installing Windows using DOS fdisk split that ol' harddrive into two halves. Install Winbloze to the first half and then Redhat to the second partition. That's what I did in the past. Worked flawlessly. Someone said something about the 1024 Linux cylinder limit and not to install Linux past it, I was even warned by Redhat setup about the limit but never had any problems booting into either Win98 or Redhat via Lilo.

Recently, wanting to get rid of Redhat's bloat (Plus I felt Fat) to better learn the OS and programming I ditched it for Slackware 8.1. I did the same as above. I cleared the whole 30 gig HDD. I partitioned it into two 15 gig parts. Formatted them both with DOS fdisk to FAT32 filesystems. Installed Winbloze to first partition in about 15 minutes. I then rebooted with the Slack CD in my cd-rw drive and installed Slack to the second partition using Linux Fdisk to partition the second FAT32 partition and then I formatted it ext3 and installed Slack in about 15 min. Now I can easily boot to either OS during boot-up via lilo.

peace

Thanks for your help. I will give these suggestions a try.