I have a 250 GB Hard Drive that has Vista on it and I reduced the partition to 160 GB. I tried to load Linux Mint on the remaining 70 GB of space, it was formatted. I got as far as where I had to chose between MANUAL or auto. I tried auto first and it wonted to install on the partition that has vista. There was no choice to choose the other partition (the I drive). I went back and tried manual. It asked for a partition to put the OS on and one for the swap file I make them both 2 GB. I was told that I needed 2 GB for Mint and that I need the swap file to be as big as the amount of memory that you have on the machine. That is 2 GB. After all that it told me that it wasn't activated. I am at a loss as what to do now. I need all the HELP I can get. What do I do now. Oh, I tried the Linux site and didn't get any help. By that I mean that what they proposed didn't help. THANK you much for your time.If you have a hard time with the Linux Boot loader, try something else.
There is a way in Vista to set up a boot manager that will LET you boot another Operating system. If that is too hard, you MIGHT want to try a third party boot manager. Problem is, Vista has changed things that used to work good the way they were. It is said to be better, but not easy to understand.

But you take a look at this.
Please tell me if you think it is easy.

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_linux_vista_installed_first.htmThat worked fine. It was easy. The only problem I had was I couldn't get the modem to work. When I deleted Linux Mint, Vista wouldn't work. Thank you for your time.