Dual boot Debian Lenny and Win7

[lindsey]

Dual boot Debian Lenny and Win7 with Win7 initially present.

Deb Lenny does not seem to acknowledge the presence of other operating system Win7 Ultimate. Offers no utility for partition management. Bad Debian!

I'm given manual and guided options except I don't know if Debian will override Windows 7 and I'm scared to do anything!

[yancek]

You will need to post more specific information to get any real help.
What exactly have you done?
Did you download the Debian iso?
Did you do the md5check?
Did you burn it as an image? at a low speed?

Deb Lenny does not seem to acknowledge the presence of other operating system Win7 Ultimate.

What does that quote mean?

At what step in the process did you have problems?
I don't use Debian myself but, I would be very surprised if it did not have GParted or some other partition manager. Most Linux distributions I have used will tell you what is going to happen before installing, for example what partition it will install to. You need to carefully read what you see at each step and not just click Next. If you are unfamiliar with the installation process, you might do some reading on it before continuing.

[lindsey]

You will need to post more specific information to get any real help.
What exactly have you done?

Nothing as yet.

Did you download the Debian iso?

Yes, DebianLenny 504 i386.

Did you do the md5check?

I don't understand what this is. Is this even necessary?

Did you burn it as an image? at a low speed?

The disk works. I've used it a few times before to successfully install Debian.

What does that quote mean?

At what step in the process did you have problems?

Debian is different from OpenSUSE or Ubuntu because it does not acknowledge the presence of Windows at the partition set-up screen. So how do I get it to recognise and respect the presence of Windows? Meaning don't touch it - I want a side by side installation. The option is not clearly available.

[tornow]

You got several options.
a) Boot into a live-cd and run gparted. Resize the Win7 install. Boot the Debian-installer and choose < manual partitoning> point it to the free space. Done
b) Boot into the Debian-installation-CD. Choose manual, choose the partition Win7 is hosted and choose resize. Resize it, and create some new partitions for the Debian installation.
Keyword in both cases is < manual>.
c) Use either Ubuntu or Open-Suse of whichever distro offers you the choice < resize the existing OS>.

All cool, nice and easy.
If it wouldn't be different there wouldn't be much sense in using it, would it?