you might want to download to a boot able stick before pink the one you want to use

For what it's worth, four years ago I was where you are. I used GPartEd, which was on the Linux Mint live DVD that I had burned to experiment with. I didn't consider installation until I had played around with the live DVD and decided that a dual-boot installatation was worth doing.

I just now put three key words into the Yahoo web search engine -- gparted linux tutorial. That only got 330 thousand hits. But just the first page had several YouTube tutorials and several web sites. Check out a few of them. I had an extra hard drive that I could erase and partition for practice. If you can do that, it would be great. If not, well, Vista's service life ends in a couple of months, so it is no great loss if that OS gets trashed. Just backup your data first.

Clonezilla's TUI (Text-based user interface) should guide you though the process of setting up your clone image.

Clonezilla can read/clone both Windows as well as Linux partitions/file systems.

I would recommend you use separate hard drives for Windows and Linux rather than installing them both onto the same hard drive, as you might have file corruption issues down the track, if you do install them both onto the same hard drive.

Maybe here; I call it: 10minutes to Linux withOUT 'disturbing WinMonster'

Clonezilla is available as a CD ISO image/LiveCD so that you do not need to KNOW that the underlying OS happens to be Linux.

Before using it, check some of the how-to documents and pages online that show how to secure a Windows machine using it. You need some kind of target storage where you can deposit the image of your windows disk as a backup. It is very much intuitive the SECOND time you use it, but there are always lessons when using a new tool.

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Hey again ... I can't speak for all linux distros, but I know that several do include some kind of partitioning sequence and tool in their setup routine. The distro I've been using for the last several years doesn't have an installation program - everything is more or less done manually. So, in answer to your question, I would suggest that you download a live version of GParted, which someone has already referred to here. This is an easy to use partition editor with a graphical interface. Fire it up and before even making any changes, just get used to figuring out how your disk is already partitioned. Amongst other things, you want to be able to recognize the partitions that are the main Windows install, the Windows recovery partition and the ESP (EFI System Partition, or boot partition). They should be fairly easy to identify.

Once you're ready to manipulate the Windows partition, I would recommend doing that from within Windows with the Disk Management tool (This Computer's context menu - Manage - Disk Management down near the bottom of the list of tools ...). GParted will let you do it, but it is safer to let Windows itself decide how much to let you shrink its partition. Once you've done the shrinking, reboot into Windows again to make sure all is well, and then you can boot back into the GParted live session and create a partition for your linux install, along with a swap partition if you decide to do that (please feel free to ask for advice if you feel the need).

Using GParted requires no linux experience. Also, the recommendation someone made to backup your disk using Clonezilla is a good one. Clonezilla doesn't require any linux knowledge either, and as mentioned, it guides you through the cloning process pretty easily. Depending on the ressources available to you (other hard disks, disk space ...), you can choose to backup your entire disk (I recommend this as opposed to backing up a partition) to either another disk, directly, or to an image file.

Again, hope this helps.

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Does that happen to everyone?

My computer has only one spot for a hard drive internally but I do
have a external hard drive (backup drive).

I did have it happen to me when I had Windows (XP Home Edition from memory) installed alongside of openSUSE (can't remember which version), some years back now. From what I understand (and gathered from my experience), the partitions themselves had become unstable. So it seems to me that Windows and Linux partitions on the same drive, are not a good mix.

Some other options are,

Use Virtual Machine software.

Or have one of said OS's installed on an external hard drive and run said OS from there. That way the other said OS would be installed on the internal hard drive.

You sound confused.
New rig for "gaming" and the "spare vista pc with a gtx 260" is going to be for Linux, why fsck with dual-booting?
That's later. Virtualization is later.

Depending on the specs of this "spare vista pc with a gtx 260",
whatever distro you choose...it is my opinion you should try Xfce first.

Get Linux on the space vista pc using one of the choices from https://linuxmint.com/release.php?id=28 (Personal Favorite Distributions are both "Mavericks", Slackware and LinuxMint)

If you don't know 32bit architecture from 64 bit, safe bet is boot a 32 bit until you are certain you like the
1.) Distribution (Kinda like Coke vs Pepsi, or Ford vs Chevy) and
2.) Desktop environment (Loved the Ford F350, the F250 model sucked)

The boot sessions are called "LiveCDs" even though they rarely fit on CD.
Sessions are temporary and don't usually write long term to any established
partitioning.

Anti-Virus on Linux. I don't use it on the Desktop.
Used it everywhere in the Windows world.
Never caught a Virus on Linux.
Other threats are classified in other terms.
Virus or Anti-Virus doesn't begin to cover multitude of crap that's being thrown at Linux users
these days.

Stay "patched". Actively update and install offered updates to the system. Just like that other OS on "Patch Tuesday" as it was called.
Use common-sense, a router if you can afford it.

Don't use "Foreign" sources for software without extreme vetting.
Stability is more Important (to me) than the "Latest and Greatest" in Linux (like they did in Windows).

Some links there and some more on PPAs (software sources for Debian systems).

wikipedia for basic concepts.
<search_engine> for details.

Don't be afraid to make mistakes. It's how we learn.
Linux is tough and durable and comes in all shapes and sizes. Lots of Choices, unlike that other....never mind.
"Fix more than I break" has been my motivation in IT for 23 years now.

Some Linux-y stuff for new Linux ambassadors:
http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm
http://linuxnewbieguide.org/

If you have the inclination and resources, a printed Linux book would be helpful.
Even an older one will have about 4-5 Chapters of "the basics" (which are the same every where)

8am. Damn, I got up early to mess with TrueOS Desktop.
See what you started?

Enjoy the goodness.

+1 for that

I have never personally had this type of problem and I've been dual-booting Windows and linux on various laptops and other computers since around 2008.

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I have never had file corruption, but I did get a file system unstable message on a drive that was strictly a data drive. The drive was formatted as NTFS, and both Linux and Windows were reading and writing to it. I was able to get rid of the instability with one of the DOS commands, but I don't remember what it was offhand.

There are at least two ways to avoid instability. Linux Reader (https://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/) is a free Windows program that reads but cannot write files on an ext 2/3/4 partition. That is one way to move files from a Linux partition to a Windows partition. I have also tried using Linux to write to a Windows disk directory named "Public", which is supposed to be used for sharing files. That has caused no problems (so far).

linux-man,

Just because that was my experience, it does not mean it will also be yours. It was too long ago for me to be able to say exactly what happened, in my case (as there may have been other issues at play as well, in any case, I once again can't remember).

If you currently have Windows installed on your PC's internal hard drive and are new to Linux (and looking to try it out), I would suggest you install some virtual machine software (like Virtualbox, for one) onto your Windows installation and get a "feel" for Linux before installing Linux to your real PC. As this way you can avoid a lot of problems in the first place, and if you make mistakes you can at worst, just create some more VM's, to replace any broken ones.

How would I go about saving my work in virtual environment though?
I thought powering off virtual machine and the subsequent fresh restart means fresh slate?

When you save something in a VM (virtual machine), it "stays saved" after you shut it down. Functions much like a "physical" machine. You just have to make sure you allocate enough disk space when creating the VM to accommodate your expected storage needs. Usually, one would choose a dynamically managed virtual disk that grows as needed up to a limit that you specify, depending on your needs and limitations.

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