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<htmlet>fedora</htmlet>
Fedora Linux, just like most Linux distributions, will happily co-exist on a hard disk drive with just about any version of Windows. This is a concept known as ''dual-booting''. Essentially, when you power up your PC you will be presented with a menu providing the option to boot either Fedora Linux or Windows. Obviously you can only run one operating system at a time, but it is worth noting that the files on the Windows partition of your disk drive will be available to you from Fedora Linux regardless of whether your Windows partition was formatted using NTFS, FAT16 or FAT32.
To create a dual boot environment, the existing Windows partition will need to be reduced in size to make room for Fedora to be installed on the hard disk drive. To achieve this, begin by selecting the ''Shrink current system'' option followed by the ''Next'' button. The installer will subsequently display the ''Volume to Shrink'' dialog as illustrated in the following figure:
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[[Image:fedora_shrink_volume.jpg|Shrinking a volume to install Fedora]]
Linux includes a powerful disk partitioning tool called ''GParted'' which will need to be installed before it can be used in the live system. To perform the installation, select the ''System->Administration->Add Remove Software'' menu option and wait for the application to start and populate the package list. Enter ''GParted'' into the text field, click ''Find'' and wait for the package to appear in the list. Click the check box next to the package name and initiate the installation.
Once installed, to launch ''GParted'' click on the ''Applications'' desktop menu and from the ''System Tools'' sub-menu, select ''GParted''. Once running, the ''GParted'' main screem screen will appear displaying a graphical representation of the disk partition layout:
The above ''GParted'' session shows a Windows NTFS formatted partition which is taking up most of the available disk space. In order to make space for a Fedora Linux installation the next step is to resize the Windows NTFS partition. The objective is to reduce the size of the Windows partition from the current size of approximately 15Gb 15GB to 8Gb8GB. This will create 7Gb 7GB of unused space for the Fedora installation. Select the NTFS partition in the ''GParted'' window and click on the ''Resize/Move'' toolbar button to invoke the ''Resize/Move'' dialog:
In the [[Allocating a Windows Disk Partition to Fedora Linux | next chapter]] we will look at the steps necessary to remove a Windows partition from a dual boot configuration and assign that partition to Fedora Linux.
<htmlet>fedora</htmlet>
