help required partitioning...

Hi there,

I have a new SATA 320gb drive for my laptop. not sure if its pre formatted.
I guess it will have about 298gb usable space. I plan to partition it first, and then install windows 7 on it. I know there is a disk manager tool on Vista and Win7 but ideally I would like to just partition it first.
a 100gb each C, D, and E drive on it.

I know there is free gparted software to do this, but can someone tell me in the simplest steps, what program I should use and how to do it.
Something I can burn on a CD, boot from CD, and then just create 3 x 100gb NTFS (win7?) drives. C being the primary.
do I need a 200gb extended section with two 100gb logical in it?
anyway, can anyone please recommend a freeware too to do this?

thanks so much.

:major

 

I just read that

Do not install Windows 7 to a hard disk that not yet been partitioned or to unallocated space (When install Windows 7 to unallocated space, no warning pop-up or confirmation is asked, and setup will straight away and directly create partition 200 MB of disk space as special partition without notification).
If possible, try to create all the necessary partition(s) and format the partition(s) before attempting to install Windows 7.
If you’re installing Windows 7 into a new hard disk, or a blank hard disk with no partition defined yet, or if you must delete all existing partitions to start afresh, chose Drive options (advanced). Delete (if applicable) unwanted partitions. Then, click New to create the single partition or multiple partitions according to your own preference.

Does this mean I can create 3 partitions during installer phase of win7? If so, that might be the easiest solution? Or should I do it before I even use the win7 dvd I have.

 

maybe during the win 7 installation I can create a NEW partiion for the entire size of the unallocated 320gb drive. Then I can format this NTFS. then shrink/extend it so that I have it 100gb with 200gb extended. then format the extended drive and shrink/extend again to create a third 100gb?

something like that? If that can be done during the win7 installtion phase that would do me.

?