Help to create a Partition on laptop please

alarmed

Is it possible to install an OS on an existing drive without having to overwrite the existing one?
Basically it's an older laptop with a basic spec but has plenty room left on the hard drive.I've tried in both disk management to create a new partition and during the Windows installation but I don't seem to have that option.
If it helps its an older HP laptop with a single internal drive that I would like to install a second XP operating system onto.

Thanks for any advice.

ThemeOne

It should certainly be possible to install a second instance of XP, provided you had a second licence key.

There should be the option of creating a new partition during install, though I'm going on memory here, and I don't think the XP installer makes it very clear, and you'll need to be careful you don't inadvertantly delete the partition which has your existing XP install on it.

Failing that it might be worth looking at a third-party partitioning tool, which you'll probably need to run from CD at startup. I always use gparted, which is free.