Setting up partition so as not to erase data.

[hurricane.ditka]

I'm installing SuSE. I'm in the partition manager and before I do something stupid, I thought you guys could help. How do I set up a partition on my hard drive without erasing the loads of music and movies I have saved on there? I'm in expert options and it is all foreign to me.

[scrarfussi]

you should use the free space there is a bar which shows you what space is used and whats available there is also a slider which you can move you would have to move it from right to left cos free space is on your right

[vengeance]

hurricane since u won't b that much familiar with suse ,if u r familiar with partition magic just resize ur data partitions and create an empty partition arnd 15-20 gb for suse.format it as FAT32.then in the installation as scrarfussi said point to the empty space here ur partition and u wud solve ur problem .just the partitions wud be named as /sda1 or /hda1 etc... /sda1 wud be c:\ drive in windows and henceforth

[oz]

Check out the Parted Magic LiveCD:

Parted Magic

It's a Partition Magic clone that works really well for working with partitions, and it's easy to use. It's free, and it's a small download and burn to CD.

[lsatenstein]

Before you do create a new partition, do a backup. A slip of the finger or a bug in the partition editor will cook your music.

160 gigs is a lot. If you have some small money and can afford it, buy a second 160g drive. These are around $50.00 to $60.00 In US money.

Of course there are sales taxes.

[hurricane.ditka]

I have a 320 gig HD, but It was DOA when I hooked it up. I'm sending it back for a replacement. Right now, the only one I have is a 120 gig that has all of my movies/music/pictures. There is only 20 gigs free right now, but there is only one partition: the ntfs that holds my files. If I get partition magic, or the generic version, will I be able to resize the only partition to make room for SuSE? I downloaded some other partition program and the live cd took forever to load, and I didn't understand how to use it.

[oz]

Yes, Partition Magic and the clones have a "resize" option. Here's another clone (Gparted LiveCD) that might work if Parted Magic didn't:

GParted -- LiveCD

Really good documentation for using it exists on their website.

[hurricane.ditka]

Gparted is the one I used and I didn't understand it. The resize option only let me resize the empty space before and after the partition, like 8 MB or something. It wouldn't create a new partition, either.

[hurricane.ditka]

Ok, I've been reading some how-to guides, and they say that the resize bar will have a yellow bar inside of it, telling you the space your data is taking up. I don't see a yellow bar on my screen. Am I not using the program right? The resize option still wont work.