Need Help partitioning a disk for dual boot

[Kurt Granroth]

Most modern Linux distributions should have a GUI version of 'parted' 
integrated into the installation process.  In particular, SUSE does a very 
good job of that.  During the SUSE installation, you are given the 
opportunity to resize your Windows partition to whatever you want and then 
create the Linux partitions.  It's all very slick.

On Tuesday 19 September 2006 10:34, Mark Phillips wrote:
> 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?