Using gparted I repartioned a 500gb disk. I deleted the existing 500gb ntfs partition and created 3 new ones. 1) 20gb ntfs, 2) 20gb ext4, 3) 460gb ntfs - I then installed tiny core in 2) using the "install to existing partition" option. Tiny core booted just fine.
I then tried to install windows xp in 1) - I booted with a xp CD and the first part of the installation seemed to work OK. However, when the machine was rebooted to continue the installation I got " operating system not found". I tried bootfix and mbrfix from the xp repair console but that didn't fix anything.
In the end I had to delete the partitions and recreate them using diskpart (xp utility). Only then was I able to install xp.
So, I'm wondering, is there a problem with gparted, or did I make a mistake somehwere?