@Mike Hewitt: I can use the DVD in the laptop (BTW that is a Macbook Pro I now have duel booting) but it seems not right to me and I'm a little scared to proceed with anything there, purely because I'm not sure what I'm looking at. When the laptop boots from the DVD I see a menu with three headings - Installation - Rescue System - Check Installation Media My memory is that there was another item at the top of that list about trying out the operating system. Perhaps there is some way that the installed OS is detected and now that option is excluded from the list? Or maybe my memory is fuzzy and that's the 'Check Installation Media' option? @Wen Lin: I mean I have two screens and both of them show nothing. No quick splash of information. I did dome of that googling you suggested, I didn't really enjoy what I read and so I'm going to pretend I didn't. @ Lev: When creating the partition, the way you described was not quite the way to get where you suggested. Instead I followed a video which told me to use the Run tool and type 'diskmgmt.mcs' into that which took me straight to it. Question. Is 'Free Space' the same as 'Unallocated' space? I've shrunk the main volume, do I need to do something else to turn the new partition into 'Free Space'. It is currently labeled as 'Unallocated'. Thanks for your help everyone. I greatly appreciate it. Scott.