ok. So I'll create a 10 GB FAT32. Install Linux, giving it 8 GB for the OS partition, and 2 GB swap. That way, I will have extra space for later. And If I can't see the C: partition from linux, I make the rest of the space FAT32, because both windows and Linux can read/write to FAT32 file systems.

Have I understood this right?

And BTW: Which one of these is fastest, and looks best?

Ubuntu
Fedora 8, 7, and Rawhide
openSUSE 10.3, 10.2, and Factory
PCLinuxOS 2008
CentOS 5.1
Debian
ArchLinux 2007.08
FreeBSD 7.0 and 6.3
NetBSD 4.0
Frugalware Linux Stable
Foresight Linux 1.4.2
Damn Small Linux 4.2.4
VectorLinux 5.9
Mandriva 2008.0 and 2007.1
Slackware 12.0

This post has been edited by Feelay: Mar 28 2008, 07:07 PM

Right. Exactly. That's exactly what I recommend. I don't know if my explanations were clear or if you are particularly clever, but, yes, that's exactly what you have to do.

I definitively say Mandriva 2008.0 or 2007.1
For a beginner, it's fully straightforward. You boot on the install CD, you accept each default value (language = english, use graphic mode, auto-detect of graphics, auto-detect of network, use DHCP etc...) and it will auto-mount each of your Windows partitions, and you will see which is writable or not.
Of course, if you browse the other posts around here, you will see that ridig Linux people hate Mandriva because it's too easy for use, you learn nothing. My opinion is that, as a first contact, you should start with a very easy thing like Mandriva. After one ear playing with it, switch to RedHat, which is slightly more complicated. And, at the very end, go to Ubuntu, which needs more experience but at this moment you will be a geek with command lines and with downloading drivers.

Hope this helped.
Yordan

Yes. Thank you It helped alot

And BTW Your explanation were clear, but I just made a fast summary to make sure that I really understood what I had to do
I bet that I am not Clever at all
I will install linux. I will be back when I am done. (wish my harddisk good luck ).

This post has been edited by Feelay: Mar 28 2008, 07:33 PM

I have stopped using Partition Magic and changed to Partition Manager because partition magic with Windows XP 64 bit was failing to work. Though Partition Manager doesn't work in Windows XP 64 bit the recovery cd it has works better than any partition magic i have used.(pqmagic 5-8)

Partition Magic and Drive Image were two very useful tools from PowerQuest. Unfortunately, they got greedy and copy-protected their versions around 2004, and also changed them in major ways so that they no longer worked with anything earlier than Win 2K. The result was that they drove away most of their market, and had to sell out to Symantec. Symantec was delighted to buy them, since DI was the main competition to Norton Ghost. Anyway, PM and DI are at this point obsolete for anything newer than Win 2K.

If you're willing to pay for an alternative, I suggest Boot It Next Generation and Image (for Windows, Linux and/or DOS) from TeraByte Unlimited. As Yordan has said, Linux can do most of this stuff by itself these days, but there is a learning curve. I use SuSE 10.3 for most of my Linux work, but it differs significantly from "vanilla" Linux, primarily due to extensions that I find very useful.

One other thing to remember -- if you're planning on creating backup files of full partitions, you may want to use NTFS rather than FAT32, because of file size limits. The maximum possible size for a file on a FAT32 volume is 4 GB minus 1 "null" byte (232−1 bytes). That also means you cannot store the iso image of a full DVD in a FAT32 file system.