[ltp] Installing Linux on a TP40 (2373-75U)

[Paul Kaplan]

I'm looking for some advice.
I have a a 2373-75U which was originally configured by my company w/ W2K on a 
single 36.5Gb NTFS partition on the 40Gb drive.  The remaining space on the 
drive appears to be IBM's hidden partition containing the factory W-XP 
restore files.
I tried using Partition Magic 8 to re-partition shrink the NTFS partition so I 
can format the remainder of the drive for Linux and shared partitions.  PM8 
choked halfway through the process and left me to boot to the blue screen of 
death.  After the crash, PM saw a single NTFS partition, but had left an 
error(s) on it causing the problem.
I found a thread on another list suggesting that someone else ran into the 
same PM problem.
I also discovered that by turning off the security feature in the BIOS unhid 
the 3Gb partition.  Clearly IT was unaware of this since they have no current 
plans to install XP and would create a company standard image if they did.
Since I can't kill W2K and I don't have the permissions to be able to restore 
it if it gets messed up as before, I'm looking for a way to "safely" resize 
the NTFS partition.
Will turning off the security feature allow PM to work, or is there something 
else about the T40 that is incompatible with PM.  (I've used PM on a W2K box 
at home without problems.)  Are the open source ntfs resizing tools on 
Knoppix or Mandrake any better?  (I don't need to be able to enlarge the ntfs 
partition since I can always make a second one, if necessary.)