On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 7:21 AM, Larry Martell <larry.martell at gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 7:11 AM, Marko Vojinovic <vvmarko at gmail.com> wrote: >> On Tuesday 31 January 2012 05:34:21 Larry Martell wrote: >>> On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 10:15 PM, Arun Khan <knura9 at gmail.com> wrote: >>> > On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 9:57 PM, Ken godee <ken at perfect-image.com> wrote: >>> >> Maybe a little different answer than you're looking for.... >>> >> >>> >> But why not install VMware Workstation (free)? >>> > >>> > The OP does not have admin rights to the Windows OS. I presume he >>> > would need it to install any piece of software (I use Virtual Box). >>> >>> I can't even defrag the disk without admin rights :-( >>> >>> I'm going to make one more push to get admin, and if not, just go >>> ahead and install CentOS and see what happens. >> >> Beware that resizing a Windows partition which has not been defrag'ed is a Bad >> Idea, and works only if you are lucky enough that Windows didn't use the end- >> portion of the partition. Maybe it will work on a freshly installed and not- >> ever-seriously-used Windows, but it's a gamble. > > I've found that there is an automated defrag scheduled for 1:45am on > Wednesdays. I probably won't be up then, but perhaps nothing will move > around between then and the morning. > >> If it doesn't work, you're looking at data loss and corruption of the ntfs >> partition (fixing of the latter may require you to have admin privileges...). >> >> If your Windows admin doesn't want to provide you with the privileges, why >> don't you ask him to resize the partition for you? > > Yeah, I'm in a remote location (at home) and it's a huge company with > centralized admin services and I'm working for a small division, but > perhaps I can get them to remote in and do it. They're just not very > responsive, so it's a slow process. I was able to get temporary admin rights, and then I successfully installed CentOS and can also boot into Windows. Thanks everyone for all the info and advise. On to bigger and better things! -larry