While trying to installed Mandrake 10.1 on my Toshiba Satellite laptop, when I was trying to set up a partition from Windows NTFS which covers all my hard disk.

Partitioning failed: ntfsresize failed
ntfsresize v1.9.1
NTFS volume version: 3.1
Clustersize : 4096bytes

Accounting clusters...
Cluster accounting failed

so you know this is my first venture into the world of Linux and my knowlage is extremely limited.

Have you tried Google?

That is how I found this place

If you search google with the string "Partitioning failed: ntfsresize failed", then the first result is a link to a FAQ containing a possible solution to your problem.

Actually it is this thead, but the FAQ is there

Google says see the NTFS RESIZE FAQ at http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/...ze.html#chkdsk

QUESTION: What do "Cluster accounting failed" and "Filesystem check failed!" mean?

ANSWER: Before resizing an NTFS, ntfsresize makes a filesystem consistency check and it refuses to progress, giving the above messages, if it found errors. In these cases you need to boot Windows and run chkdsk with the /f (fix errors) command line option. If chkdsk asks you about if it should check the drive the next time you restart the computer then answer 'y' (yes) and restart Windows. If you don't specify the /f option then chkdsk will not fix the NTFS consistency problems.

In short, your NTFS was found to be corrupted thus resizing was refused to prevent data loss. Fix your NTFS first following the above hints then you will be allowed to resize it safely