As a Linux novice, I read the previous posts regarding Helena & the comment
below so decided to give it a run.
Using the live CD all was well apart from a minor glitch with the time
setting not allowing for Daylight Saving.

Hoping this package was sufficiently equipped & novice friendly for me to
advance my transition from M$ to Linux I then attempted the install process,
intending to dual-boot with XP as I had done with Ubuntu previously.
Mint then gave me 3 options:
1. Share my XP's 'C' partition (not enough space there, but I did have 200GB
unallocated space behind the C partition)
2. Use whole disk (no thanks)
3. Advanced (not me...got lost in "setting mount point" as well as wanting
to dual-boot & not risk losing XP)

Having failed there I now used Easeus Partition Manager to increase the size
of my 'C" partition by the unallocated 200GB to allow Mint to resize &
share.

But now the Helena installer no longer gives me option 1, tells me "no OS
installed" & wants to use the whole drive (yes, XP still works fine & I'm
able to mount the enlarged 'C' partition from the live Helena CD & access
it's contents?)

Am using a 1TB HD divided into 3 partitions with 'C' now at 396GB.