Partitioning

Before you go around partitioning your HDD, meaning making different sections to it, you should keep in mind that there are two types of partitioning. There is destructive and non destructive. Destructive partition does exactly what it sounds like, it destroys information. The only time you would use destructive partitioning is when you are doing a fresh install of an operating system, or two for that matter. On the other hand, there is non-destructive partitioning, which does not destroy anything when it makes new sections on the disk. You can use this at any time for just about any reason. You could take a 500 GB HDD and partition it into two 250 GB sections, then work on one section and back and save files to the other. Or, you can do what I did and dual boot operating systems. One of the best non-destructive partitioning tools is the one found within the Linux Live Installation CD, that is the CD you use when installing Linux. If you do use the Live CD, you don't actually have to install Linux, you can partition and then cancel the installation when done. So just remember, unless you are doing a fresh installation of something, you want non-destructive partitioning or you will lose all of your information.

~Dave