IBM LAPTOP T42

... without that restore disk to make things easy for you, you'll have problems anyway getting all of the drivers needed for the laptop.

You DO have all of the disks that came with the laptop, right?

http://tinyurl.com/3dwaee

It's an extremely useful application for partitioning a hard drive, now in a user-friendly GUI (graphical user interface) format. You can plan your partitioning, review [i]before[/i] and [i]after[/i], and then make your decision.

To perform a proper reinstallation of Windows XP Pro, it would be a good idea to [i]wipe[/i] the hard drive of all code, even the partitioning code. You can do this with [i]Darik's Nuke and Boot[/i]:

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

which is a free download. Create a [i]bootable[/i] CD from the [i]iso[/i] file with the free CDBurnerXP:

http://cdburnerxp.se/

To create a [i]bootable[/i] CD, follow these guidelines:

http://tinyurl.com/4f3coa

Once you have [i]wiped[/i] the hard drive, reinstall XP Pro (use NTFS formatting). Should you then wish to set up a 2nd partition, use PartitionMagic.

I have never lost a file using PartitionMagic, but it goes without saying that you should always back up your data before performing disk partitioning.

If you have more questions, please post back in this thread.

Rick/Portland, OR