help with linux and speakup?

[Lorenzo Taylor]

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A new partition won't kill Windows if you have free space (for free read
unpartitioned) on your drive.  If you have to delete a partition to make
another, Windows will most definitely die.  If you have to resize the partition,
Windows could possibly die, and that's why programs that resize partitions tell
you to backup your data.  But if your Windows partition already doesn't take up
the whole drive, it is possible to make a new partition for Linux in the unused
space.  Also be aware that free space as shown in "my computer" is not unused
space where a new partition can be created, but is actually unused space on the
partition.  Free space for creating a new partition is space on the drive that
is completely unallocated and therefore unknown to Windows itself.  You will
need to use a program that can read the partition table to find out if you have
enough space to make a new partition.

If you don't want to go through all that and have the money, purchasing a second
hard drive may possibly be the better solution.

On the other hand, speaking from personal experience, when I resized my Windows
partition before I was willing to give up Windows completely on this machine, I
defragmented the hard disk and resized the partition using Partition Magic and
then installed Linux and had no data loss.  However I wouldn't recommend doing
things in such a dangerous way unless you are willing to take the risk of losing
some files or making Windows unbootable.

HTH,
Lorenzo
- -- 
Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint.
		-- Mark Twain
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