Windows Vista A Few Quick Questions About Partitions

[chno95]

Hey guys, I've got a quick question for all you experts out there. Although I have lots of experience with computers in general, I've hardly ever used Windows Vista before, and I've already completely destroyed it twice in the 48 hours I've had it. Long story, don't ask, resulted in me staying up with my dad until almost midnight fixing the stupid thing.

The point is, I do NOT want to mess anything up again as far as Vista goes, thank you very much. However, I still want to install a flavor of my favorite operating system, Linux. I'm hoping the two aren't mutually exclusive, but it's always good to check.

Anyway. In order to install Linux, I understand I'll need two
free partitions, one for swap and one for / (ideally, I'd also have a /home partition, but oh well). I also understand that a hard drive can hold a maximum of four partitions. And Vista is currently taking up four partitions. This probably has something to do with my dad and I's somewhat haphazard "repair."

Pic, for what it's worth: http://i38.tinypic.com/2n124x.png

So, I take it I need to get rid of at least two of those. I'm thinking the first two, and possibly the fourth. C: is definitely sticking around, but the rest are empty, as far as I can tell.

This brings me to my actual questions.

- Will deleting/resizing partitions render Vista unusable in any way?
- Is there any way to access the first two partitions? I can find C: and D: in Windows Explorer, but not the others.

Thanks, people. I know I don't want to have to spend sixteen hours working on the thing again, and my dad definitely doesn't.

 

[kemical]

You shouldn't have any problems with vista if you delete the spare partitions. As you probably know just right-click on the vista partition and click the option to increase the partition size. You may have to remove the letter thats affixed for the 'D' partition to actually be able to remove it.
Oh, the reason you can't find the last two partitions is that they need to be assigned a partition 'letter' before you'll be able to see them. In any case your removing them to make way for a larger partition and so isn't an issue..