Deleting the Boot Partition

kwikness · 10-17-2009, 04:40 PM

Hi, I have my hard drive partitioned into 3 partitions with one operating system on each partition, as follows:

Windows XP
Windows 7
Slackware 13.0

I want to delete the Windows XP partition to free up space on my hard drive, but I'm afraid that it will corrupt or delete the LILO bootloader and prevent me from loading either of the other 2 operating systems.

What should I do? Can I save and restore the bootloader and its configuration somehow?

buggyazyn · 10-17-2009, 05:51 PM

Hi kwikness,

I belive that you could delete the Windows XP partition without problems unless lilo is install in the Windows XP partition.

To make a lilo backup, just copy the /etc/lilo.conf to another device (maybe a usb drive) from slackware.

If something goes wrong, insert the slackware dvd (or cd) and run
# lilo -C /path_to_file/lilo.conf.

Have any doubts, just ask.

Good day

ajlewis2 · 10-17-2009, 06:47 PM

The problem with deleting a partition is that it can change the partition numbers of those partitions that follow it. This will not happen if the windows partition is a primary partition and slack is on a logical partition on the extended partition. I deleted a partition once and then could not boot because of this number change.

You could delete windows and keep the partition for some other use. Either way, as buggyazyn said, you will not lose what is in the mbr.

Quakeboy02 · 10-17-2009, 07:02 PM

Quote:

I deleted a partition once and then could not boot because of this number change.

Good point! In the OP's case, it might be best to just reuse it without first deleting it. Just use cfdisk (or your favorite partitioning program) and change the partition type. Then put a filesystem on it and put it to work. Don't forget to remove it from lilo.conf.

smeezekitty · 10-17-2009, 07:35 PM

if win 7 is anything line vista IMHO i would rather have XP over 7