[johnhammond]

I have lnx4win mandrake 8.1 installed on my system. It is dual booting with windows 98se. I want to uninstall Mandrake and install it fresh on its own hard drive. Also can i install mandrake 8.1 on the slave drive or do i need to put it on a master partition?

HELP PLEASE

Thanks for the help

[Spinach]

option 1. All you need to do is go to your lnx4win directory from windows explorer and as far as I can remember there is a batch file (uninstall.bat) file which you can run to get rid of it...

option 2. You can edit your config.sys file and remove the bootloader lines from it and delete your lnx4win directory. I recommend option 1 since lnx4win might have changed since I last used it and therefore option 2 might not be all that safe


As for the installing of linux on it's own partition. Best and safest way I have found is to use Partition Magic (in case you need to resize your old partitions to accomodate for the new partition) and create a blank new partition on any of your drives, leave it unformatted and tell linux setup to install itself on the free space, the setup program will then do the rest for you. I would recommend 3+ GB for the "empty" partition you create.

My install methods are open for debate though, somebody may have a better or easier way... Anyone?


BTW, you are going to notice quite a nice speed difference with linux running on the ext2 file system compared to fat32... Everything runs better on home ground

[johnhammond]

Cool thanks spinach ill try to go with option one.

[johnhammond]

There is no uninstall in the linx4win folder.

[Spinach]

if you can, post the contents your config.sys file and we can go from there!

[johnhammond]

Config.sys? when i click on the one in the c drive i get open with...
And the one in the wondows dirictory is the same. What do i do?

[Spinach]

john, when open with comes up, choose notepad as the application you wish to open it with then just copy and paste all the text in your config.sys file from into the message you will be posting on here

oh, the config.sys file you need to post is the one located in c:\ not the one in c:\windows (you shouldn't actually have one there)

anyway, sorry this one is taking a while

[johnhammond]

Sorry for the delay but im back. I have a good one for you. When i go to the config.sys in c: and i click open with note pad the document is blank!! All that there is is a cursor. Now im not a competer wiz but i am thinking that thats not right.

I hope to hear from you soon and once again im sorry for taking so long to post back

[johnhammond]

BTW there isnt one in the windows directory but there is one in C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\EBD and this is the contents of it

[menu]
menuitem=CD, Start computer with CD-ROM support.
menuitem=NOCD, Start computer without CD-ROM support.
menuitem=HELP, View the Help file.
menudefault=CD,30
menucolor=7,0

[CD]
device=himem.sys /testmemff
device=oakcdrom.sys /D:mscd001
device=btdosm.sys
device=flashpt.sys
device=btcdrom.sys /D:mscd001
device=aspi2dos.sys
device=aspi8dos.sys
device=aspi4dos.sys
device=aspi8u2.sys
device=aspicd.sys /D:mscd001

[NOCD]
device=himem.sys /testmemff

[HELP]
device=himem.sys /testmemff

[COMMON]
files=10
buffers=10
dos=high,umb
stacks=9,256
devicehigh=ramdrive.sys /E 2048
lastdrive=z


Thanks

[Spinach]

hmm... thats is very odd, what happens if you try running this command from a dos prompt

fdisk /mbr

then reboot your machine? Any luck?

sorry about not knowing how lnx4win works in mdk 8.1 but i remember that mandrake used to load lnx4win from a bootloader that was placed in your windows config.sys file, i am not aware of any changes since i don't use lnx4win. The proper linux install uses a bootloader from your boot record, fdisk /mbr rebuilds the boot record to the windows default BR and gets rid of any modifications.

anyway... i'll hunt around in the mean time and see what i can find.

hope i helped in some odd little way

oh, and the config.sys file in the C:\Win....\com...\EBD directory is one used for a win98 startup disk. the ebd folder in fact contains all the files needed on such a disk

[johnhammond]

Thanks that got rid of the boot loader. Now what? do i just delete the linx4win folder?

[Spinach]

yup, you should be able to safely delete the lnx4win folder.

[johnhammond]

Thanks for all of your help. Ill see you around the board

[johnhammond]

well i installed linux on its own 9.5gb partition and everything works accept for the cd rom. There is no cdrom icon.

[Spinach]

in your file navigator is there a cdrom listed under /mnt ?? if not you might have to mount the cdrom, do you know how to do that? if not, gimme a shout and i'll try help you through it

ummm... didn't you have the same problem in your lnx4win install? i seem to remember reading it somewhere...

p.s. it's a pleasure for the help so far, im happy to have helped you! it looks like we are not done though