if c: drive is corrupted in windows OS, we can reinstall the c:\ with windowsXP and the remaining data will be safe in other partitions. Is there any way to make linux partition like this, so that data remains in other partition and the main linux OS in a single partition? pls reply.

Yes, absolutely. With linux you get the choice of where you want to put your data, so you can put it on a separate partition, or disk, or even a different machine. Reinstalling the software can be done without affecting the data.

Having said that, linux is not like windows, you don't generally have to reinstall to correct a problem.

As long you have separate partitions and choose No format on that partition, the data will remain untouch.

It's pretty easy with linux. Just partition your hard drive (or drives) into more than one partition before installing (using a live cd if you like, but most installers give you the choice during their setup program). Then just make sure your /etc/fstab points the partitions at the correct spots in the directory tree and you're done.

For instance, I have three partitions on my desktop (plus a swap partition) on two different drives. One is mounted to the root filesystem ('/'), one to /usr, and the third to /home. So my fstab looks like this:

Run 'man fstab' at the command line for more details than you could possibly use. You can partition any hard drive you don't have mounted using cfdisk.