[ThePythonicCow]

Do you have good backups of anything you value on your Windows system?

If not, I'd tend to that first. If you're not familiar with changing the partitions on your disk, it's an easy way to destroy all your data.

[Rodney King]

I had a few excel and word files, I emailed them to myself, otherwise its no big deal if I lose everything.

[Richard Kimball]

Good advice. I haven't done a disk partition since back in my Windows days, but IIRC, partitioning meant "BACK UP EVERYTHING AND DO A CLEAN INSTALL!!!!!" Lots of surprises can happen when partitioning a disk. OTOH, if he's going to do a clean install, is there any reason not to partition and reinstall Windows, if he thinks he might want to use it? It might also be easier to install XP first, since he's more familiar with it, let it do the partition, and then install Ubuntu.

This suggestion is made by a guy that knows nothing about Linux, flame away at will, Gridley.