Nother Partioning and Formatting Question

Hi, I've searched the forum and google, but I'm kinda unclear. I Have a 40GB hard drive with about 28GB free, what I want to do is partition the drive and kinda practice install windows xp on it so I don't blow up my computer when I reformat the drive completely. I want to make sure everything works and I have the correct drivers and all that jazz. Can this be done without reformatting the entire drive? If so, some steps on how to go about it would be appreciated. Or if this is just a dumb question, feel free to tell me that too. Thanks!

 

What are your current partition sizes?

 

I just have one partition 40GB, I dont even know if what I want to do is possible, I've just never really reformatted a drive before and wanted to set up a partition to try it on. Thanks for the reply BTW.

 

Try partitionmagic.

 

Okely Dokely, thanks.

 

Holy Moly sixty stupid bucks for partition magic, think I'll just buy another hard drive to experiment on LOL, thanks for the suggestion though.

 

http://windows.about.com/cs/diskpartitionsw/

 

Holy Moly that's a lot of tools batman

 

K, so I got partition magic, now I have what is probably an idiotic question. Can I set up a "dual boot" system with Windows XP Pro and Windows XP Pro without blowing anything up? All the examples I've seen have win98 and xp or 2000 and xp and that kind of thing. I'm sorry if this is dumb to ask, but what are the advantages of a dual boot system? Why do people set their pc up that way? Thanks!

 

Yes, you can dual boot!
I do, Right now I typing on my triple boot PC, I have W2K on partition C, XP pro on D & E.
One note, when setting uo multiple boot PC always load the oldest OS first, it doesnt really matter what partition you load to other than a Primary Partition you can have up to 4 primary partitions.
Windows 98 likes to be on the first partition.

Another option if your willing to just reload your OS you dont have to buy any partitioning program, simply use the xp cd to partition/format or most all HDD manufactures have a free utility that can partition & format multiple partitions.
Each OS should have it's own computer name and each should have it's own basic programs,Drivers, Firewall, Antivirus Etc.
Each is treated as it's own PC.

Advantages =
The cheapest way to have more than one PC.
If one crashes or ya just Fubared it up, you can still access files from the other OS.
I find very useful for experimenting with different programs can tell the real differance or comparison, after all all my partitions use the same hardware/memory/cpu/Etc.
You can run different drivers on each.

When one OS fails, still got another.

Last thought,
I've never seen a PC blow up, maybe a little smoke & sparks but never from Dual Booting.

 

Our webmaster at work has several computers set up with 95,98, me, nt,2000, and xp just so he knows our website works on all of above.

 

Thanks guys! Very helpful answers, I already got partition magic, so i shall give it my best attempt. Thanks again.