Background
My parents finally gave me permission to install Linux, and I'm giving it a go. I'm installing Fedora Core 4 from a DVD and I plan to dual-boot Windows and Fedora from my one and only hard drive. Fedora's Anaconda installer has an automatic partitioning service. When I ran the installer and got to its automatic partitioning service, it said that I "need a /root partition on my hard drive... this can be due to having no free space on the hard drive." I believe that the automatic partitioning service creates the /root partition for you. I have over 20 gigs of free space on my hard drive, so I believe that my Windows partition is hogging it all, which is why the automatic partitioning was unable to create the /root partition. Window's Disk Management service shows that my Windows partition has a capacity that equals the amount of free space on my hard drive.

Question
Can I reduce the amount of space on my hard drive allocated to my Windows partition, and if so, how? I did some research and looked into the Windows help menu and the Disk Management service and couldn't find a way to do it. I'm on an admin account, but strangely the "format" option for my partitions is disabled in the right-click menu.

Thanks in advance.

You should use FC5.  Anyway, Windows can't reduce partition sizes, only make and enlarge (I know, right?).  You'll have to use a tool like PartitionMagic, but be careful.  I accidentally nuked my drive and had to format everything.

He is correct; you'll either need to back everything up and start fresh, or resize the drive with a tool like PartitionMagic.  PM 8 is well worth the money, particularly if you do any kind of support, and I've used it on multiple occasions.  It's never failed me. 

Thanks, I'll look into PartitionMagic.

Posting from Linux ;-) I haven't mustered up the courage to boot Windows up and see whether my file system is fried or not. Thanks for recommending PartitionMagic -- it did the job (well, as far as I know!) and was user-friendly.

EDIT:
Windows seems fine ;-)