Linux can read NTFS just fine, but not safely write to it. You'll want a small (100mb) linux partition as the first partition on the drive to mount as /boot, the second partition will be fat32 for winxp, then you need a large partition for / for linux, and a small (200mb or so) swap partition at the end. Linux will reference the first primary partition as hda1, the second primary partition as hda2 (for XP's c:\ ), the third for Linux's / will be hda3 and swap will be hda4. This assumes you make all 4 partitions primary partitions (you should...). I've not used partd (or the qt front end to it) but I can post directions on using Linux's fdisk if you need it.
Also, best Linux board I've found in 7 years is at
www.justlinux.com (formerly known as linuxnewbie.org)