I have tried to install mandriva power pack 10.2 from DVD.

I have booted into install fine it is just the partitioning i am getting stuck at.

I have a 30gig Hard Drive, about 8 gig is currently being used by windows XP pro with SP2. The rest is empty. I defragmented my main C: hard drive and then rebooted to install.

In the printout i got from the Mandriva Site it said its installation partiton program has four options and to go with option one.

However i only seem to have three options and the one it says to use (i believe its use existing partitions) isnt there.

Only
1. Erase All drive
2. Use Windows (i dont want to do this)
or Customize partitons.

I chose the third and it seems to be saying that the entire 30 gig is being used by windows. I chose automatic sizing and it said not enough free space (i have 20 gig how much does it need??)

So i couldnt install. So how do i set up a dual boot partiton on my main drive. Is there a way i can do this prior to Mandrake installation as i dont trust this. All i want is two dual booting partitions on my C: drive. A 17 gig for windows and 10 gig for mandriva. (as my drive says its 27 gig not 30 gig)

I have Norton Partition magic OEM that came with my external Hard drive but i havent installed it as my cisco course adviser advised against using it as he said he has had two many instances of it crashing and corrupting data, and he said to use Mandrivas internal partitioning program but it doesnt work.

So what do i do.

Final question. If i install norton partition magic and create two partitions. What will happent if i then uninstall norton Partition Magic. Will they go back to one partiton. Will they remain as they were (im hoping this option is the case), or will they both corrupt.

Thanks

It in not how much free space you have in your windows partition that matters but how much free space you have on your disk outside the windows partition.

A hard disk can only hold 4 primary partitions, windows normally installs by creating one partition that occupies the entire hard disk. this leaves no room for other operating systems without using a partition resizing tool.

Before using your partition tool back up your system and check the backup to make sure it is good. None of the tols is perfect and there is always some level of risk.

Repartition your disk by shrinking the windows partition to a reasonable size, maybe 12 to 15 gig to leave yourself space for windows and for Linux.

Next if you want to share data between the two systems make yourself a new partition, 1 Gig is usually plenty and format it as FAT not NTFS.

Leave the rest of the disk open and your two remaining partitions free for the Linux installer.

Now when you run the Linux installer it should see the free space and offer to install into it.