I have a Dell Lattitude laptop with Windows XP installed on a 40 gig drive, NTFS format. I want to install a copy of Redhat 9 to play with. I need to know how to partition(using what utilities and how) this drive for Redhat 9. I get errors when trying to use automatic partitioning. Is it possible to put Redhat on this laptop without having to wipe the system? Thanks.

Hi aeb

Do you mean - dual boot XP and Red Hat 9 on the laptop?

Does your XP partition currently take up the whole drive?

Hi,

You can definately put Red Hat and XP on one laptop. There is the risk of losing your data on the XP partition, though, if you must shrink it.

You must shrink the partition if it takes up the entire HD, or if it leaves less than 2 gigs of space.

Once you have backed up the database for your Fortune 500 company (that just happens to be on your laptop), you should shrink the XP partition to (I would recommend) a minimum of 37 gigs.

To shrink an NTFS partition, I am fairly certain a neat tool called Partition Magic can do it. Then pop in the Red Hat disks and the installer should detect the free space and ask you if it should use that.

It is even easier if you have a substantial amount of free space already on the HD, as SkyLine pointed out. Then, just pop in the RH disks and off you go!

Another option would be using a Live distro like Knoppix if you are merely interested in Linux as something to play with.

Yes, my XP NTFS partition takes up the whole 40 gig drive. How do I get/install/use partition magic. Is there no way to resize the XP partition in Windows? Thanks

I am not aware of any partitioning tool native to Windows that can resize partitions. The 'fdisk' tool that comes with DOS and Windows can create new partitions, however (This can be found on your installation disk).

I, personally, have never used Partition Magic (but I have set up a dual boot with RH). From what I know of PM though, it is very easy and user-friendly. Maybe someone with more experience with PM in the LQ community could enlighten aeb105?

Also, I think you should look into Knoppix. Oh, and to find out more about Parition Magic -> http://www.google.com

hmm. i have two different live CD's that let me log into a session of linux without actually installing it. demoLinux and slackware live. i haven't explored them fully, but they might have partitioning tools that would do it...

if i get the chance, i'll check it out for you and post the result.

You could always run a virtual version of Linux on Windoze using WMware. It works but it's not the same thing.

If you're gonna use partition magic be prepared (back up!) to loose everything. I managed to do that the other day resizing partitions.