Window's Installer and Windows access

[impedimint]

I'm sure this has been covered somewhere, however I didn't see it. Please feel free to direct me to a previously solved question.

I installed Mint in windows via virtualclonedrive. I had previously been using a thumb drive with unetbootin, but I was annoyed that every time I logged off I couldn't save any changes and basically had to go back to square one. I had hoped that now that it was installed onto my computer that the changes would be saved and that I would have access to my windows files. No such luck?

[impedimint]

Nevermind. I've been hesitant to partition my hard drive, because I've read some of the horror stories about HP claiming you've voided your warranty. I'm just going to bite the bullet, though, and take the plunge, and maybe one or two other cliches.