Partitioning a partition?

[.fred]

Hey MR!

I plan to install Linux 7.10 on my external HDD later as i just received the disc. However, my 80 GB HDD has already been partitioned to 50:50. One of them, drive H, has 20gb free space, on the 37gb partition. is there a way to just partition maybe 3gb for linux without losing data in any of the two "main" partitions?

 

[mmzplanet]

Hey MR!

I plan to install Linux 7.10 on my external HDD later as i just received the disc. However, my 80 GB HDD has already been partitioned to 50:50. One of them, drive H, has 20gb free space, on the 37gb partition. is there a way to just partition maybe 3gb for linux without losing data in any of the two "main" partitions?

While you cannot "Partition a Partition", (extended partitions are divided into logical drives) you can resize partitions with some utilities out there. I strongly recommend backing up before messing with any partitions. Linux will want a swap partition as well, you will need more than 3GB overall. It is also risky to resize a partition that is still fragmented.