installation disk partition manager thingimabob
 

i remember reading that SuSE or Mandrake or some other distro has a partition manager built in to the install that will let you resise existing partitions without losing data (under a dual-boot environment). i normally take care of all of this before i even worry about installing linux, but this time i wasn't thinking so carefully. i have a 10 GB HDD, currently with 5 GB allotted for windows and 5GB allotted for linux. i want to resize the windows partition to 3 GB so i can have more for linux. do any of these partition managers allow you to resize an ntfs partition? i really don't want to have to reformat the drive cause i don't feel like backing up my data and reinstalling everything. i thought about resizing the ntfs partition with partition magic (or even converting it to fat32 with partition magic), but i'm running windows 2000 advanced server, and partition magic isn't compatible with windows server family. apparenlty for that i need VolumeManager, which costs $600. any other suggestions on how i can resize an ntfs partition without losing anything? man i hate m$ :mad:

Mandrake lets you resize an NTFS partition i've done it with mine didn't have any problems, it only works during the installation process

I know that's your business, however ;) , unless you have a good raid, remember disks break down. Often.
I experienced it the hard way.
If you mind your data, backup it someway. I simply use another (old) harddisk.

yeah, i've learned that the hard way too. actually the computer has 2 hdd's--a 10 gig and a 20 gig. the 20 gig has my important stuff on it. oddly enough it's actually a factory replacement for another 20 gig i had that went bad under warranty. the stuff on the other drive isn't super important, i just don't feel like reinstalling windows and all my applications. but thanx for the input. i'm gonna try the mandrake install disc and see what happens.