Partitioning
 

How do you partition a HDD?? I was planning to make a 40gb partition to install Linux Redhat on my 120 GB HDD.

what's on the 120gb hardrive now?

Has all the space been already allocated to a single partition?

Probably the simplest answer will be:

Partition Magic.

Your linux install will have a partitioning tool as well.

-bear

Right now im using Windows XP. I am trying to install Linux, but seem to be having problems.

I think Redhat 9 has a tool to work with another OS when you start installing it.. along the lines of

Set Red Hat 9 up to work with another OS

Alright I'll try to install it later on tonight. Thanks for the help :thumbsup:

Alright I seem to be having trouble installing Linux. :o i burnt the ISO to a bootable cd and all that comes up is something that seems to be Command Prompt or MS-DOS. Anyone have any good online tutorials?? It would be much appreciate. :D

If you're running a windows OS, it may have already partitioned your whole hard drive into a single partition, which Linux can't use...you can check by right clicking my computer, go to manage on the menu, then look at disk management under storage. If XP's using the whole HD, you may want to look into ParitionMagic, or another program that will resize your partitions to free space for Linux, as mentioned by j8ear earlier.

For tutorials, try: http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/

I was going to try this as well but when I did a search on partition I kept reading how people who where trying to do the samething said that Partition Magic did more damage they it help so I'm at a brickwall right now. Anyone know any other tools?

I rarely recommend partition magic frankly and really just flew off the cuff with my first post. Ideal solution is to back up all data on the drive now, and then wipe and rebuild it into probably three partitions, of 40 gb each. (approx, it's likely to not be exact.)

Anyway once so configured, you reinstall XP, and reimport your data. Allocate two of the partitions for XP, and then run your linux install using the remaining, as of yet not formatted, or allocated partition.

Come to think of it, building a dual boot system is usually a bad idea in itself, and with that in mind...get another PC on which you can install, and therefore USE your linux build.

Building a dual boot XP/linux system is possible, and manageable, but really impractical.

imho,

-bear

Also, a second hard drive can be good for this, a smaller hard drive can be found cheap on ebay.

I've got a 10gb drive I use for playing with operating systems.

I agree:

Back-up, back-up, back-up!

Read, read, read before you start!

I'd also start with using an additional small drive for toying with linux. Re-partitioning a drive with an existing OS can lead to particular errors that are way beyond the scope of most users. I also agree that Partition Magic has lost its luster. I dual-boot, but I back up everything, write zeros to the entire disk, and repartition with blank partitions, thus reinstalling the operating systems -- Windows first (oldest versions first, then newer) and then linux, and I use GRUB as the boot manager for Windows and linux.

If any of this seems foreign, it may be a good sign that you need to tread very carefully as you attempt this!

A great way to experience linux safely is with a live CD, a bootable version of linux on a CD. Knoppix is a famous one, but now there are many others such as Gentoo and PCLinux that provide bootable CD images that decompress from the CD. You can save data to an existing folder on your HDD, and access your data from that drive as well (I'm thinking MP3's, etc, or even Office documents that can be opened with OpenOffice. However, I'd save new copies of whatever you change while in linux, treating the originals as read-only