NTFS-5 is simply the latest version.
[pointless history trivia mode]Windows NT introduced the original NTFS (hence the catchy name), and when Win2K came out they made some small internal changes. A PC running original WinNT can’t read a NTFS-5 volume, but a Win2K or later machine can read an original NTFS-4 volume. They added the ability to read NTFS-5 into WinNT with, IIRC, SP4. NT machines still running SP3 or earlier are very rare anymore, so there’s no difference practical between NTFS4 and -5[/pointless history trivia mode]
Your question doesn’t exactly make sense. You seem to be confusing “formatting” with “partitioning”. A single physical disjk drive can be partitoned into several different logical drives( ie. C: D: E: F: , etc). Or the physical hard disk can be left as one big partition. You can also leave unpartitioned space on the drive which is unused now but which can be converted into a partition later.
Once you have some partitions, then you can format it/them. Each individual partition can be formatted differently from the others, but each individual partiton can be formatted only one way: FAT, NTFS, Mac, Unix, whatever. When you boot an OS, it will be able to read and display those partitions it understands, and the others will be completely invisible.
In general, partitions cannot be resized without deleting 100% of the data on them. There are programs that claim to be able to do that, and they work most of the time. But when they fail, 100% of your files are gone and you get to reinstall the OS and all the programs. Such fun.
Also in general, once a partiton is formatted, that format type is fixed forever. To change it, you reformat the partiton in some other style, incidentally erasing 100% of the data on it. As an exception to that rule, Windows includes a feature to reformat a FAT32 partiton as NTFS in place without damaging the data. That’s cool, but it’s also a one-way trip. Having converted the partiton from FAT32 to NTFS, there is no way to convert it back to FAT32. Not that you’d want to.
Formatting a particular partiton to NTFS does NOT limit what you can do to any other partitons you may have. They can be formatted, re-formatted, or deleted entirely. With 100% of the data on them being lost of course.
So in answer to your specific question, BEFORE you install the first OS, you can decide how to divide up the hard drive. Your, say, 80GB hard rive could be set up with partition #1 of size 3GB for booting Windows, partition #2 of size 50GB for storing Windows files, partion #3 of size 15GB for installing Linux & its file storage, and leaving the remaining 12GB unpartitoned.
When you start to install the first OS, it’ll ask you whether and how to partition the drive. Assuming you’r doing Windows first, you’d tell it you want the 1st 3GB partitoned as C:, the 2nd 50GB partitioned as D:, and leave the rest unpartitioned. For each of C & D you’d then get to pick FAT32 or NTFS. Windows would then go through the whole install process and you’d find you’ve apparently got two hard drives, a 3GB C:, and a 50GB D:.
Now you can go back and install, say, Linux. That can be 5 minutes, or 5 months, later. It’s install program will detect the unused 27GB and ask you how to partition it. When you’re done, Linux will read its partiton and Wiindows will read its partitons and neither will know the other exists. (As others have pointed out, some flavors of unix can read NTFS and will see the Windows partitions if you want.)
Again, you can’t change the size of a partition with data in it, at least not without special utility programs and then not with enough safety for my taste.
Hope that’s clear and simple enough. (For the pros, yes, I know about NTFS dynamic volumes, but let’s keep this at the home user level)
but by this evening, the HD was screeeeeaming at me (not a “bad” scream, just a persistent “Hey! DEFRAG ME you S.O.B.” complaint.) I’m not sure how much of the drive is fragmented because my defrag program is a piece of Shi’ite that doesn’t give any kind of percentages (grr…) but it was estimating a 2+ hour defrag time before I aborted it.