advice for linux newbie

[Lord C]

I have a very important question.

When installing a dual boot* (for those of us who do not have the courage to make the plunge (into freedom)) on a system with a single unpartitioned drive, is there a way to partition it with minimal risk of data loss?

If not, my friend needs to backup his whole disk. He doesn't have a burner, and doesn't know anyone in the area who has an external one. He has a fairly decent internet connection. I have a burner, and we have two flash drives, with a total of 384 MB. No external HDDs in sight. Any Ideas?

*Ubuntu/Win2k

I doubt the disk is unpartitioned, otherwise there would be no data to lose

Programs like Partition Magic are good for partitioning, although personally I usually use the Ubuntu installer/fdisk.

[BobTheHob]

I have a very important question.

When installing a dual boot* (for those of us who do not have the courage to make the plunge (into freedom)) on a system with a single unpartitioned drive, is there a way to partition it with minimal risk of data loss?

If not, my friend needs to backup his whole disk. He doesn't have a burner, and doesn't know anyone in the area who has an external one. He has a fairly decent internet connection. I have a burner, and we have two flash drives, with a total of 384 MB. No external HDDs in sight. Any Ideas?

*Ubuntu/Win2k

If you have or can get ahold of a knoppix disk, it comes with a utility you can use called "QtParted". You can do pretty much everything you can with partition magic, but without haveing to buy or crack the application, cuz its free . Just resize the win partition and leave the free space, don't make the linux partition in QtParted. You could if you wanted to, but it would prob be easier to just let the linux installer use the freespace.

[Jenda]

OK, thanks for the efforts. But can I run QtParted from his Windows 2000? And is it safe?

Of course it's partitioned. My bad. But it only has one partition.

[BobTheHob]

OK, thanks for the efforts. But can I run QtParted from his Windows 2000? And is it safe?

Of course it's partitioned. My bad. But it only has one partition.

Its very safe, but unfortunatly only for linux.

[Jenda]

Its very safe, but unfortunatly only for linux.

Well, the thing is, he doesn't have the install CD for Windows, and he is the type who is used to many Windows things (MSN, Limewire). So he won't do it if there's a risk of losig Windows. Or not yet. Even though he knows about Jabber and that LW works under Linux as well.

And I have another friend, who would like to try dual boot, and he has the same problem. He's a gamer, and has a huge HDD, with some windows or another. So, does partition magic or QtParted damage the data on the existing partition?