Subject: RE: Removing Windows(+PM)
From: Peter Q. Olsson (olsson@koyukuk.at.uaa.alaska.edu)
Date: Thu Jan 08 2004 - 10:52:07 AKST
All-
I just went (kind of) the other way, removing a ext2 partition and creating a
vfat 32 partition in that space. (Stupid Windoz applications are REAL disk
hogs, with lots of extra features ya never use...)
A few observations:
1) Using an older version of Parition Magic (6) , I was unable to do the
modifications above, for a number of reasons, part of which were clearly just
bugs. (After setting things up for desired modifications on "disk 2", upon
"applying changes" PM tried to do everything on "disk 3". Since there was no
disk 3 on this machine, PM fails 'cause it could not find the device. Duh.)
2) PM does not see disk utilization on linux partitions. I initially want to
just use the unused space on /dev/sdb4 (76%) to create a vfat32 partition, but
according to PM the partition was full, so no go.
3) maybe one could enlarge a linux partition with PM using vfat space , since
the current disk utilization in linux, seen as 100%, would not be a problem in
this case.
4) I finally accomplished the desired objective by booting to linux, running
fdisk as root to delete the linux partition on /dev/sdb4 , create a vfat (LBA)
partition with fdisk, and finally format it using mkfs.msdos. THis same
approach should work just as well converting a partition to ext3 from vfat.
5) I conclude that free and built-in linux tools work better than Windoz sh?t
you pay $$ for. Does anyone know of robust tools for linux that do what PM
purports to do? DO newer versions of PM have the same flaws?
6) If you are NOT successful in adding the unused space using PM (or some
linux equivalent)- and I doubt you will be since you will be trying to delete
the partition that PM lives on- I would not mount it under /mnt since 1) /mnt
is typically used for "temporary" mounts, and 2) it makes for a longer path. I
create a mount point /u1 (or /u2 and so forth) and mount to that. Note that
you will want to change /etc/fstab to have this partition mounted
automatically on boot.
7) it would probably be worth the effort to create a logical volume to make it
look like one disk, though there are advantages to having the file system see
2 disks as well...
Also grub.conf needs to be edited as discussed previously, unless the machine
defaults to linux on boot, in which case things should work well w/o
modification. Just do not try to boot to dos!
PQO
On Thu, 8 Jan 2004 07:35:06 -0900, Jim Gribbin wrote
> I guess that's supposed to work. I've never used it myself to change
> the size of a Linux partition.
>
> Maybe someone else here is more familiar with that.
>
> Jim
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matthew Dunaway [mailto:fert@eagle.ptialaska.net]
> Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 1:47 AM
> To: jgribbin@alaska.net
> Cc: 'AKLUG'
> Subject: Re: Removing Windows
>
> I have Partition Magic installed on her computer. Could I use that
> to delete the Windows partition, then re-size the linux partition to
> use the whole 20 gig drive? I used Partition Magic to create the
> Linux partitions, so seems logical that I can use it to remove the
> windows partition??????
>
> Jim Gribbin wrote:
>
> >You should be able to edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and remove the line(s)
> >referring to dos. Use mkfs.ext3 to format the windows partition, probably
> >hda1, as ext3. Create a mount point under /mnt. Maybe /mnt/spare? Edit
> >/etc/fstab to mount the new partition at boot.
> >
> >You could also, in theory anyway, use LVM to logically add the new
> partition
> >to an existing partition. This gets more complicated and I haven't played
> >with this as yet.
> >
> >Jim
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: aklug-bounce@aklug.org [mailto:aklug-bounce@aklug.org] On Behalf Of
> >Matthew Dunaway
> >Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 9:25 PM
> >To: AKLUG
> >Subject: Removing Windows
> >
> >
> >Hello,
> >My wife has a dual-boot Windows 98/RedHat 9 box. She wants me to remove
> >Windows. How do I remove windows without damaging her RH 9 partition and
> >all of her data and also get rid of the option to boot into windows from
> >grub?
> >I know how to get rid of linux on a dual boot, but not Windows. I have a
> >Windows 98 start-up disk.
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__________________________________________________________________
|
| Dr. Peter Q. Olsson,
| Chief Scientist, Alaska Experimental Forecast Facility
| University of Alaska Anchorage
| 2811 Merrill Field Drive
| Anchorage, AK 99501
| voice: (907) 264-7449, fax (907) 264-7444
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