OK guys - successfully partitioned spare drive, but have hit mega problems in an unexpected area.
Have known the resolution was limited to 800x600 when running from the live cd, but I thought this would be more adjustable with a hd installation. I installed Ubuntu to the hd fine and it runs, but when trying to adjust the display resolution, and finding that the 1280x1024 I like using was missing from the list of resolutions available, I explored the menus and in Hardware I was prompted to download the Nvidea driver (which I did). Then on restarting found the screen garbled. I went into NVIDEA X server settings as best I could only to find whatever resolution I chose totally screwed up the display.
I'm saddened by this. This is where linux falls down for me. At least with Windows stuff like resolution setting is relatively straightforward. I don't mind a bit of fiddling and adjusting - to be expected really - but after an hour of fiddling to no avail, it's back to the live cd for me. Either that, or I may have to put up with a 800x600 display after doing a reinstallation on the hd.