What version of the kernel you running at the moment? If you are changing from 2.2.x to 2.4.x you will probably want to update some of your user space tools that deal with loading modules, the mod-utils I believe (can't remember their proper name - DOH!). The next thing you will want to do is have a look at
http://linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/Kernel-HOWTO.html for some better instructions about how to do this - I think this version is still aimed at 2.2 but should be relevant for 2.4, its the same process, just with some different options.
To give you a brief overview - Go to /usr/src, you will probably find your have something like a dir called linux-2.4.2 and a symlink to this dir called linux, remove the symlink
then uncompress your new kernel
Code:
tar xvfz linux-2.4.4.tar.gz
or
Code:
bzip2 -dc linux-2.4.4.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -
depending on wether is gzip'd or bzip2'd. This will create a folder called linux that holds the new kernel, you might want to rename this and symlink it, depends if you are ever going to have multiple kernel sources, if you do want to do this then issue a
Code:
mv linux linux-2.4.4 ; ln -s linux-2.4.4 linux
Now change to your new linux directory, run
then use either
or
depending if you are in X or not. Choose the options you want (the most daunting bit if this is your first attempt), save the config then try a
then
then
then
Code:
make modules_install
and that should be it. You'll need to reboot...
Note that the above assumes that 'make bzlilo' will install your kernel to the correct place, I don't think this is the case if you are using RH, as it will place the new kernel in / not /boot. It also doesn't give you the option to boot the old kernel, this is something you will probably want to be able to do unless you are confident that you havn't missed anything important from your kernel options. Follow the HOWTO if I were you.
As for getting stuff of your Windows partition - just mount it! Assuming that your Win partition in the first partition on the first hard disk try
Code:
mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /someDir
the '-t vfat' option might not be necessary for you but it never hurts. Assuming that you have vfat support in your kernel then you should now be able to access all your files from /someDir (clearly this needs to exist in the first place!).
HTH
Jamie...