Basically you can download drivers into a MS Windows to mount Linux partitions for the read/write operations. In Linux equally you can mount any NTFS partition to read/write. There the position and order of data partition in NTFS and Linux partition in Ext3 are immaterial.

The easiest thing to do is to load a Linux live CD. The best one I think in your case is Slax.

You simply use Slax's terminal mode command
Code:
fdisk -l
to check the existing hard disks and their partitions.
To partition a hard disk, say it is your second hard disk (you check the partitions and details) sdb you use the program cfdisk in command
Code:
cfdisk /dev/sdb
Inside it you just create sda1, sda2, sda3 in sizes of 30Gb ,30Gb and 12Gb respectively. The 12Gb of sdb3 needs to be NTFS so you use the "type" option to change the partition ID from 83 to 7. A standard partition created in Linux is always type 83.

Your logical partition should start at the remainder of the hard disk. My suggestion is to create the first logical partition of 1Gb and specify it type ID 82 so that it becomes the common swap partition usable by all Linux. You can then continue partition sda6, sda7, sda8, sda9..... to the sizes you desire. Say you have a large data partition in sda10 and you want it to be NTFS so just repeat what you have done on sda3.

cfdisk program is the most educational partitioning software.

When done you opt for "write" to write the partition table out and reboot the system.

If you install a Linux just tell its installer which one of the sda1, sda2, sda6 to sda9 partitions you want to install that Linux. My practice is one operating system per partition as it is easier to maintain.

If you boot up a MS Window it cannot mount your sda3 and sda10 yet because they have not been formatted. You will find them in the 3rd and 10th partitions in the disk management program with which you can format them. Once formatted the sda3 and sda10 will be assigned a drive letter each and you can start using them.

Since sda3 is a primary partition it can be used for installation of a bootable MS system.

You will find sda4 is missing because as an extended partition it is just an envelope. It will show up in fdisk program but not cfdisk. If you understand the reason behind then you understand the working of extended and logical partitions.