So I just got this laptop and it has a newly installed Linux OS on it. I worked with it for about a week then I couldn't get much software. After that I went ahead and tried to download Windows XP and it didn't turn out to well. So my system was up and going again and I found out I had a few trouble spots on my PC. My question is can I create a new partition and then release the old one and still have the Linux OS in okay shape? Is there is a way of rearranging or repairing the partion so that I can clear up any problem areas? I'm not real sure how the system can be tuned or minor overhauled to fix it. A step through of how to do this operation would be great.
Well, what exactly problems do you have with your Windows XP installation?
Maybe you didn't have proper drivers? Did you tried to install Windows 7 or Windows 8 instead of Windows XP?
Basically you also should be able to install almost any modern Linux distribution to your laptop AFTER installing Windows.
It will ask you about installing the bootloader and resizing the partitions when installing.
Then you should be able to choose boot into Linux or Windows when reboot your laptop.
So I can suggest you to try install Windows 7 or 8 first, and Linux next.