Recently installed Fedora 3 onto a 60G hard drive, partitioning it into 20:40G windows:Fedora. I'm getting to the point where I am going to stop using windows (on this machine) and want to free up the 20G for the use of Lunix users. It has taken blood, sweat and tears to get this machine to network with my Windows machines, so I don't want to re-install. Is ther a way in Linux of using the 20G partition for user space and then getting rid of the boot loader?

You will need a bootloader, no matter what you do. To remove windows from the menu, just edit grub.conf.
To complete remove windows and make /dev/hda1 available for users, you first need to re-format /dev/hda1 for Linux.
Use fdisk (see man fdisk) to write the partition table. With fdisk, be very careful to specify /dev/hda1. If you say /dev/hda, you will apply the command to the entire disk.
Then use mkfs to make a Linux filesystem on /dev/hda1.
Then cd to /mnt and make a mount point for the partition (/mnt/data or some such name). mkdir data
Finally, edit /etc/fstab to point /dev/hda1 to /mnt/data (with appropriate parameters - look at the line for /dev/hda2 for what to put in).

You should just delete the Windows partition, as it's probably FAT32 or NTFS. Then you can create an Ext3 partition in it's place. Then as root, you can temporarily mount it, and move the contents of the /home directory to it. Then you can umount and edit /etc/fstab, so that it mounts that partition to /home.

Getting rid of the boot loader? You do realise that if you do that, you won't be able to boot Linux either... ?

You may want to use 'parted' to resize your fedora partition.

Three excellent replies. Unfortunately, I only understand some of each:

I have to have a bootloader: I can live with that.

How do I know (for sure) which drive Windows is on, and do I use fdisk to delete it?

What is an ext3 partition, and how do I create it?

I can understand the mkfs and then mounting of the partition. Doesn't this mean that the disk is formatted and then recognised by Linux. The last bit (...and move the contents of the /home directory to it. Then you can umount and edit /etc/fstab, so that it mounts that partition to /home) loses me.

I really don't want to erase part of Linux as it is working so well.

ext2, ext3 (and reiser) are filesystems. mkfs can create ext3 filesystem for you.
cfdisk can make your life easyer than plain fdisk.
As soon as you start cfdisk you will see which partition belongs to Windows.
Using parted may be a little scary, in particular if you do not know exactly what you are doing. In case you decide not to resize your partition(s) then better mount the new one somewhere where it suits your needs best. One possibility was mentioned by Ironica. If your users are just Samba users, then you should mount it under a shared directory, so can they access it without creating new share under Samba.

Tried cfdisk and get command not found. Bit the bullet and tried fdisk (fdisk /dev/hda1). the command prompt appears, I type d (to delete the partition) and nothing happens. Is there another way of getting rid of the partition without resorting to a re-install?

Realised I have to enter commands. So, entered d to delete, then n for new and finally w for write. Restarted the machine and the partition is still there and working. Summat not right!

fdisk /dev/hda (not /dev/hda1)
You cannot delete the partition without accessing the whole device.

p displays your existing partition table

Really gone to town and re-installed Linux on the whole hard drive. Who needs Windows anyway!

Thanks for your help.

When fdisk is used, you have to commit the changes you have made.

d delete a partition
p shows the effect
w finally writes the new partition table to disk

if you forgot to w(rite) the partition table, no change will be effective