Partitioning for Linux

Hey guys, I've been trying to find a dumbest of the dumb tutorial for setting up a duel boot of Debian and WinXP Pro, and I can't find much, so I was hoping you guys could point me in the right direction. :)

I have a 20gb (well, 18 something) harddrive, with XP and its taking up about 7gb at the moment. What partitions/sizes/locations do I need to create to duel boot, and keep XP in tact? I have Partition Magic, and I have two LiveCD distros that I can use, but I'd prefer to do it all in Windows.

:thumb: Thanks in advance.

FIRST
BEFORE
YOU DO
ANYTHING
ELSE

You must defragment your harddisk FULLY.

Cut your XP partition down to 14 gigs or so and give linux 6 of UNPARTITIONED space. Don't try to use PM to make the partitions, as I've flubbed that before. Use cfdisk in a LiveCD (I do hope you're using Gentoo :D).

My LiveCD will most definitely be Knoppix. (the other is DSL) :p

How do I use cfdisk?

And, will Debian create the necassary partitions for me?

No, you will have to create the partitions yourself. It's quite simple, you'd probably make your CFDisk look something like this (from memory). hda1 is your existing partition.

Code:

---

table headers
-----------------------------------
hda1    BOOTABLE  14000mb
hda2    --------------  EXTENDED
hda5    BOOTABLE  50mb
hda6    --                5000mb
hda7    --                500mb

---

You'd change hda5/6 types to be linux native (it's 82 or 83), and hda7's type to linux swap (its the other one of 82/83). Then reboot to make sure it's written, and format hda5, 6, and 7 with the filesystems of choice.

Whats hda2? :unsure:

I tried to use DSL to do the partitioning with cfdisk, but it won't let me as its like protecting the NTFS drive or something. :dunno:

Are you sure I can't just do something like this?

http://www.powerquest.com/support/primus/id3983.cfm

You cando that IF you have Partition Magic. Maybe there is a trial version around somewhere....