-- Posted by ajm51987 at 11:42 pm on Feb. 12, 2006 Yeah so I would like to install linux, you know? Ubuntu looks like a great distro, and I've found plenty of guides on how to configure my custom laptop (has a bluetooth/wifi card and a widescreen resoultion). However, can I do this without reformatting my entire Hard Disk? It's in NTFS right now, can I just reformat part of the disk into FAT32? Probably not, eh? -- Posted by Macropiper at 12:33 am on Feb. 13, 2006 It might be risky, when I have been in similar situations, I have just bought an extra hard drive and installed it on that, that way there is far less risk of scary data loss, hard drives are relatively cheap and easy to install too. -- Posted by vitamin at 1:48 am on Feb. 13, 2006 Yes I would have to agree with the above. If the data is that important you either want to back it all up or install on an extra drive, however the second drive isnt really an option for you with a laptop. On another note you could use partion magic to do that but you wouldnt want to convert it to fat32...... however if parition magic crashes you are fucked -- Posted by mephisto mortis at 1:54 pm on Feb. 13, 2006 Unless they're in separate partitions, then no you cant.  I never liked those partition re-sizing utilities either.  Always seemed sketchy to me.  How much space is on the disk?  Is there a way to scheme a partition setup so you can copy the important data onto another partition, while you reformat/reinstall on the partition that you want your os on? Oh and once you get linux installed it would be a good idea to make ~/ a separate partition with fat32.  That way the data will be accesible by both windows and ubuntu.  Same with any partitions you want shared between multiple operating systems (music, movies, etc). -- Posted by ajm51987 at 2:34 pm on Feb. 13, 2006 Eh, it's a laptop, so another HD is sort of out of the question, as I don't have money for an external. Meh, I suppose I'll just do a fresh install over spring break mabye, besides I have a pirated copy of XP Pro Installed over Home and so I can't get any non critical updates because of the verification process. :p -- Posted by BostonDave at 8:30 am on Feb. 14, 2006 It is possible to repartition the disk, however it's pretty risky. Can you dump all your music onto your iPod/other music device? -- Posted by ajm51987 at 12:51 pm on Feb. 14, 2006 Quote: from BostonDave at 8:30 am on Feb. 14, 2006 It is possible to repartition the disk, however it's pretty risky.   Can you dump all your music onto your iPod/other music device? Oh yeah, I guess I can, I always forget you can take the music off once it's on. For a long time I had it on auto-update on plugin and that locks you out from being able to take songs off, and I never noticed you could take songs off when you're in manual update, so, cool stuff. Thanks guys. -- Posted by espresso8097 at 1:33 pm on Mar. 28, 2006 get a removeable hard drive or enclosure ffor u current hard drive. if get removeable, just copy like a thumb drive if enclosure, take out and put in TA-DA