Need Help partitioning a disk for dual boot

[Mark Phillips]

I have a new laptop that currently has Windows XP SP2. I want to create a new 
partition on the drive for Debian. 

My system: 30GB hard drive. Primary partition is c: with Windows XP, about 28 
GB in size (the whole drive). I want to create a 15GB partition for Debian. 

I have used Partition Magic 7.1 in the past to do this, but it seems that XP 
won't let it re-partition the disk. I keep getting an error 27 - can't lock 
drive at the first step. I googled around for a work around and did not find 
a good solution. 

Symantek now owns PartitionMagic, has a new version, and doesn't support the 
older version. After 30 minutes on the phone and referrals to 4 phone 
numbers, I finally ended up at a number that wanted to charge my credit card 
$10 in order to connect me to someone to ask them "What is the price of the 
upgrade from Partition Magic 7.1 to 8.0?"! 

So, it seems that XP comes with DiskPart, a command line utility to partition 
disks. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with it and could provide 
some guidance on how to use it. I start to get worried when it asks for 
offset values. 

Alternatively, what other options do you suggest for partitioning my drive?

Thanks!

-- 
Mark Phillips
Phillips Marketing, Inc
mark at phillipsmarketing.biz
602 524-0376
480 945-9197 fax