I have windows XP installed on my main computer, and I also wanted to install the newest Slackware version onto the same box as well. I am new to this, and I absolutely need to keep all of my windows data, and I would greatly appreciate any help.

have you already partitioned?

have you ever used linux before?

if you don't have partitioning done yet, do you have any old/spare hard drives laying around?

NOTE: this is not meant to be condescending in any way, just trying to find out exactly where you are.

No, I'm on Windows right now, and I have only used Redhat on a completely different computer. A friend recommended that I get Slackware, so I figured I would just put it on this computer and dual boot or something.

I'm really new to this and I have not partitioned, but I know that this pretty much has to be on the same drive. I just have no clue how to do this.

easy as pie my friend!

i have that exact setup right now, its running smooth

before you do anything, backup your data, unless you already have a partition done, meaning that your hard drive is at least divided into 2 parts. then, yes, you are gonna loose your data. what i did, was i sent all my important stuff to another machine, and then did this very simple procedure:

first, load the installer for slackware 10.1 on your computer, and reboot. you'll get to the isolinux screen, follow the instructions, and login as root.

run cfdisk, or if you're up to it, fdisk (me no like). and create 2 partitions, or maybe 3, if you want swap space.

create a partition to have ntfs or whatever, it really doesn't matter cause win xp will probably format the partition. after you've done partitioning. install windows again. why? because windows will write into your master boot record.

after installing windows xp, boot slackware again, this time install it and when the lilo config comes up, copy it to the MBR and voila, dual boot.

its just common sense. very easy in my opinion.

there are several ways to do this, I'd resize the windows partition instead of completely redoing it. ( MAKE SURE you make a backup before you start the partitioning process). You will need 2 partitions ( not including the windows one - so 3 in all). One will hold win, one for the root of slack, and one swap ( depending on how much ram you have, you will want somewhere between 256 to 512 MB or somewhere in that area).

One thing I would caution on, during the slack install, when you install the boot loader it gives you an option on where you want it installed. If you are unsure if you will like it, I'd go with the floppy option. This will make it easier to get rid of and leave the MBR untouched ( leaving the windows bootloader alone). You can always write it to the MBR later if you want.

EDIT:

if you use ntfs, read-write is experimental at best. If you want to share data between the two systems, you might want to create another partition as fat32.