Partition offers 'one PC, two systems'

Your advice on a solution for having two operating systems - English and Chinese - on the same hard drive would be appreciated. I would prefer to work on an English-based computer but my wife can work only with Chinese. We do simple editing of letters in Word and Excel, surf the Internet, listen to MP3 music and do some digital photo-editing with Photoshop to send the family updated pictures.

EDWARD BOCK Hong Kong The first thing you should do is to back up your data. Windows machines come with built-in disk management software such as BackUp, a utility for copying or backing up files, directories or hard drives, that will make this easy. You should make copies of all the software for which you do not have the original disks, and it is most important to back up all data files (such as your letters, pictures, Web-page bookmarks and e-mail).

With this done, you can partition your hard disk so that you can install a different operating system on each partition.

You will also need to buy a copy of the operating system you do not have. If you have the English version of Windows, you will have to buy a copy of Chinese Windows. The PartitionMagic user's manual will guide you through installing different operating systems on your hard disk and how to choose the one you want to use as your computer boots up.

You might want to consider setting up not two but three partitions. You can have one each for your two operating systems and save the third for your data, just so it is all better organised. Then the next time you have to back up your hard disk, you can start with the partition containing your data.