Partitioning a hard drive without loosing data can be done by right clicking on the mouse. Personally I made it in Windows 7, and aslo try in Vista, both are successful. But I don't know its possible or not in Windows XP. Hopefully it will be possible in XP also.
For doing this action you need to login as administrator in your computer. Then go to Start menu and right click on your "My computer" and select MANAGE.
Computer Management Dialogue will come. From this box select 'Disc management' under Storage, indicated by red arrow in the picture.