On Mon, 03 Sep 2007 11:10:20 +0200, Ton 't Lam wrote:

> 2) Do a partitioning of the HD. I understand partitioning tools comes
> with Vista. Then install Fedora, or Ubuntu on the second partion. What
> are the experiences with this approach ? Thus have Vista dormant
> available, and just use Linux.

I did this with a new hp pavillion dv2000.

I used gparted on a dvd disk. you boot to this dvd disk and it provides a
nice gui for doing partitioning.

in particular you can resize the Windows partition and make space for your
Linux partitions. the program used for this is ntfsresize.

there is always risk. if you can back up the Windows stuff first, that
would be ideal. there are tools for this including just booting from a
linux disk and using 'dd'.

a further warning. somewhere along the line the Windows partition got
affected with some kind of error, and running chkdsk from within Windows
doesn't work and the ntfsresize now refuses to touch it. Windows works
fine, however, and I am sure this puzzle can be solved.

the machine had two partitions, one for Windows and one for its 'recovery'
data. that partition was about 8gb but about 7gb is reported as used. I
suppose that could be somehow copied over to a double-layer dvd? or anyway
to a couple of dvds.

Felmon