Question about partitioning

[kidman]

I just got a new r50e with HDD capacity of 60 gb it's a dos version so i still am adding windows to the machine for the first time so I need help with partitioning....should I partition my HDD from during the windows installation or should I install windows then use a prog like partition magic or should i use the linux partitioner during installation of linux?I am planning to install windows then linux and I want to have 3 partitions...1 for windows system one for linux system and the third one to store movies and mp3s....etc.Please give me ur suggestions.THANKS

Note from Moderator: Duplicate messages deleted.

[d lehmann]

I would do the partitions first thru whatever software you want, even dos fdisk is good enough. If using fdisk then you might want to change the file system to ntfs later. It is preferrable to have xp on the c:\ partition although it works well on other assignments.
Great idea to keep your data separate.
If your dual booting then, you must follow what the boot manager requires.
Most partitioning software works well after the fact, but if issues arise you will have wasted some time.

[martinsj]

Your third partition should be formatted as FAT32 so that both operating systems can read and write to it. Linux can only read ntfs, write support is a bit dodgy.