Turning main system partition into 2?

[dgood]

How can you turn your main system partition into two because I would really like to set aside a small 30gig partition for Linux and don't' know how to split my 250gig drive up that way. Would love some help.

[road]

Get your personal data backed up before you try any of the partition resizing programs out there. Backup to a different drive possible, or burn a dvd?

Would be nice to backup the XP system partition to an image file with norton's ghost or windows's backup advanced mode, automated system recovery in case things fark up badly or you change your mind.
Optionally cross fingers and just go for it.

I used an old version of partition magic to get things resized, but I see freeware tools that may work aswell.
"Knoppix and use qtparted"
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/how-do-i- ... tware.html

or
ranish.com » Partition Manager
http://www.ranish.com/part/

I imagine resize XP to what you want, then leave the rest unpartitioned for the linux installer to setup. I haven't played around with resizing and installing linux in years, someone else here may suggest a linux distro that does the resize for you in a nice gui before installation. Good Luck and backup your data.

[bubba]

Can also use Gparted Live, works real nice.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

[dgood]

used the install cd to do it because it doubles as a live cd. so I used gparted to do it (part of ubuntu) haven't tried to get back into windows yet cuz I was playing with linux but if I did screw it up its not loss since that computer had nothing on it but a fresh windows install and F@H which I can easily put back on it and put on the linux side.