Told you I'd be back. Reinstalled Mandrakelinux on a small partition and I'm back scratching my head. Before I start with the questions, a bit more info:

I'm running Mandrake 10.1 with KDE3.2.
I have three PC connected to a four-port router

Here's where I've got to: Installed the OS and had no problems connecting to the internet. Installed samba and originally "mounted" localhost from the gui. Set up shares in my tmp drive and all the appropriate permissions. Checked with network neighborhood in WinXP and found nothing. Deleted the network connection and set up another, but this time avoided DHCP and set up a static ip address. Found not only mdkgroup>localhost but also the shared resources. Thought I had it sorted, but to be sure, re-started the connected PC and the Linux machine.

I could now see mdkgroup but no localhost, nor any shared resources. Had a fiddle (you know, click loads of buttons and hope one of them fixes it) and managed to get mdkgroup>myPC showing in the neighborhood. Now I can no longer mount a server other than the PC. The localhost has dissapeared and I'm left with either no servers, or only the PC showing. I have tried deleting the network connections and reconnecting using DHCP once more. Still no joy.

I'm ready to play with the config files if anyone can point me in the right direction.

Also, managed to work out su and how to manually edit the conf files. Even managed to change the name of the Linux machine in netbios via the samba conf file.

Just occurred to me. I've installed Linux on a small partition as a multi-boot system. If I come to remove it, how do I do it?

I'd like to help but I don't have any Windows machines here to test with. As for the partition, do you want to remove the partition itself, or convert it into something else? You can do either with the "fdisk" command, run from the root account. Other than that, it is not clear to me what you are trying to do.

Just a note: this thread has run on fairly long and people might be passing it by because they see the number of replies and assume that the problem has been solved. I suggest that now that you have a fresh install and a fresh problem, you should start a fresh thread.

Thanks BM17. Have started a new thread in "networking".

I want to remove the boot selector as the reinstall has gone awry. Even after a reinstall of Linux I cannot boot into Linux, I get an error 0X04, or something similar. I plan to clear out the linux install, reformat that partition (in windows) and start all over.