Partition Magic 8

I am currently trying to partition my hard drive so I can dual-boot Windows and Linux, but I am having trouble partitioning the drive correctly with Partition Magic.

So far I have created 54.9 mb of unallocated space before C: for the boot file. But when I select it, the "create partition" operation is grayed out. And I tried just resizing the C: to start over, but I cant get rid of the unallocated space because it tells me there is a program running from it.

This is an image of my current drive partitions.
http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/6469/part1tw6.jpg


Also, another problem Im having is that I can access any of the wizards in the task menu. Every time I try, it give me a message saying "The selected disk contains partitions which cannot be moved ".

Any help with either problem would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

Pm 8

Are you using Windows XP or Vista? If Vista, not sure it will work at all, as I've been trying to no avail to resize some partitions on my Vista test box using the OS method, and it's not working. I tried PM 8 and got nowhere! It would not function with Vista.

 

Im using Windows XP Media Center Edition, SP2.

As you can see in that image I have been able to create a partition, Q:, for my music and school notes and other thing Id like to protect and share between the OSs.

However, I dont want to create a large partition for running Linux if I cant even create a partition in unallocated space before C: for the boot file.

 

The problem may be your image shows six (6) 'primary' partitions. You cannot use more than four (4) on one physical hard drive. You may have a serious problem. See if you can't remove any of the 'primary' partitions and then run "chkdsk" to check the condition of your hard drive.

B

 

Ah, good catch. Its actually only showing 4 primary partition. 2 of them are just unallocated space. But that explains why I cant create a primary partition for the boot file and linux OS.

Hmm... the first one is the restore information put there by Dell. And I have no idea what the second one is.

Does anyone know if I can put the boot file (Boot Magic) or linux into a logical partition? Or do they both have to be primary?