> Greetings all. > > I currently use a dual booting system with Win95 and Mandrake 6, hda > Windows, hdb Linux. I have decided that I no longer wish to have my > system > defiled by Windows and would like my main machine Linux only. I am > intending to remove the windows hard drive and use it for other, more > sinister purposes. Now if I can help it I don't want to do a reinstall, > instead I would just like to make hdb (where Linux is) into hda. I am > guessing that this can be done by modifying my fstab and lilo.conf files. > Are there any other files i would need to change? > > So that I don't come up with an unuseable system i thought I'd run my > proposed changes by the list first - see if there are any obvious mistakes > in my plans. > > Here is my current fstab file - it looks a bit strange but I have opened > it > using MS Notepad as I am at work. It didn't seem to translate that well - > I've fixed it up best i can. > > /dev/hdb6 / ext2 defaults 1 > 1 > /dev/hdb5 swap swap defaults 0 > 0 > /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto > sync,user,noauto,nosuid,nodev,unhide 0 0 > /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom auto > user,noauto,nosuid,exec,nodev,ro 0 0 > none /proc proc defaults 0 > 0 > none /dev/pts devpts mode=0622 0 > 0 > /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows msdos > user,exec,dev,suid,rw,usrquota,grpquota,conv=auto,uid=501,gid=501,umask=66 > 6 > 1 1 > /dev/hdd /mnt/zip auto user,noexec,nodev,nosuid,rw,noauto > 1 1 > > > Now I don't know why my original partitions hdb1 and hdb2 were turned into > 5 > & 6, but I'm sure Linux knew what it was doing. My intention is to delete > the /dev/hda1 line and modify /dev/hdb5 to /dev/hda5 and /dev/hdb6 to > /dev/hda6. Does that sound okay? > > Here is lilo.conf (again I apologise if it looks strange) > > boot=/dev/hda > map=/boot/map > install=/boot/boot.b > prompt > linear > timeout=50 > image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.9-27mdk > label=linux > root=/dev/hdb6 > read-only > other=/dev/hda1 > label=dos > table=/dev/hda > > I believe that in the image section root=/dev/hdb6 can be changed to > root=/dev/hda6. > > Obviously the other section can be removed and I would run /sbin/lilo {as > I > write this my mind has just thought of a problem} > > I am also curoius as to how lilo will know where the /boot partition is. > I > am sure that when I installed mandrake I included a separate /boot > partition > on hdb. It doesn't appear in fstab or lilo, so how will it find the > correct > device to use? IS there another file? > > I am guessing that if I boot up, make the necessary changes to the files, > shutdown, change the drives around and reboot everything should work okay > - > except one thing I can't write to the MBR of the linux drive (the > aforementioned problem). If I use my startup floppy can I pass arguments > to > lilo at the prompt to boot successfully to linux - or am I stuffed? > > Or can I pass an argument to /sbin/lilo (no lilo man pages at work to > check > I'm afraid) so that it will write to the MBR of the linux drive (at this > point still hdb) with the information so that it will boot correctly from > the linux drive as hda? > > > A second query out of interest: > > In my current setup Windows is installed on a standard hard drive, while > Linux uses a DMA33 capable drive. The bios has DMA/33 enabled however my > understanding is that if the master device on an ide port is not DMA/33 > capable then the slave cannot operate DMA/33. What I would like to know > is > - after I change my system around and remove Windows, will Linux take > advantage of the DMA/33. During boot up I see that the kernel makes > certain > optimisations for the various hard drives so does the kernel do some sort > of > probe during boot to determine if DMA/33 is present, or is there some > other > initialisation script that contains that information? > Actually it would seem this info has been answered in another thread (i think). I would still like to know if you can optimise a slave drive for DMA/33 while having the master at standard. > If anyone can tell me if what i am proposing to do is correct (or more > importantly incorrect) then hopefully this coming weekend will run nice > and > smoothly. > > Thanks in advance > > Aaron > > ***When it comes to computer failures - prevention is better than a > cure***