hi,

I was reading a thread in the General section and it made me think about deleting my windows partition. Does mandrake have a way to do this without reinstalling?
Or if i hafta reinstall is there a way to create a "ghost" of the computer so that it will keep all my settings, files, and even my custom kernel?

thanks,
alex

Hmmm - I'm not a Mandrake expert, but I once did this with a RH box that dual booted to win'95. Win'95 was badly abused, and I didn't need it's functionality any more. here's how I did it:

1. fdisk to change the windows partition type to what I wanted (i think type 83.(i think i split it here into a small /boot and a /bkup or something)
2. mke2fs to put a file system on each new partition
3. un-mount the existing /boot, re-name it in /etc/fstab and re-mount it
4.. add appropriate entries into /etc/fstab for the new partitions
5. move my kernel images to the new /boot
6. edit lilo.conf to reflect the changes
7. re-write the boot sector with lilo

and I was up and running!
Caution should be taken to back up important files before starting this

You don't have to move your /boot to the new linux partition, but you MUST fix your boot loader after you have made the changes you want, as your system likely will not be bootable otherwise, except via rescue CD or boot floppy

It is a good idea to have a Rescue CD or Boot Floppy handy before starting this process

You don't even have to let linux take over on this partition, but Any changes that might affect the boot sector or boot process should end with ensuring the system is still bootable read the man pages for lilo or grub to make sure you know how to do this!

Hope this helps

jacks4u