ready to make the switch...but how?

[proxima_centauri]

So you want to completely remove Vista from your HD?
Fire up a LiveCD, run gparted (partition editor), delete your Vista partition (may have to unmount, forget), and resize your linux partition to occupy the left-over space.

After booting back into Mint open a terminal and run
gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
Remove the part that looks something like this:
# (1) Windows
title Windows Vista
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Cheers and Good Luck.

[MagnusB]

So you want to completely remove Vista from your HD?
Fire up a LiveCD, run gparted (partition editor), delete your Vista partition (may have to unmount, forget), and resize your linux partition to occupy the left-over space.

After booting back into Mint open a terminal and run
gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
Remove the part that looks something like this:
# (1) Windows
title Windows Vista
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Cheers and Good Luck.

Do not do this (sorry proxima, but you forgot UUID), this will most likely get you into UUID hell. First step would be to tell us the partition setup you have. Post the your fstab and the output of:

Code: Select all

sudo fdisk -l

[MagnusB]

this is what comes back from the terminal after sudo fdisk -1...no idea what that means....under vista I have a c partition with vista on it, a d partition for files and other stuff, f partition for linux and several smaller partitions that pop up automatically and I think they are somehow connected to vista...no idea


fdisk: invalid option -- 1

Usage: fdisk [-b SSZ] [-u] DISK Change partition table
fdisk -l [-b SSZ] [-u] DISK List partition table(s)
fdisk -s PARTITION Give partition size(s) in blocks
fdisk -v Give fdisk version
Here DISK is something like /dev/hdb or /dev/sda
and PARTITION is something like /dev/hda7
-u: give Start and End in sector (instead of cylinder) units
-b 2048: (for certain MO disks) use 2048-byte sectors

it is not 1, but a small L

[msuggs]

try

sudo fdisk -l instead of sudo fdisk -1

your output should look something like this example from my dual boot notebook

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x155f155f

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 4864 39070048+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 4865 6776 15358140 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 6777 6903 1020127+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 6904 9729 22699845 83 Linux

[MagnusB]

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe6c14099

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 892 7164958+ 27 Unknown
/dev/sda2 * 893 7774 55276172 6 FAT16
/dev/sda3 7775 10197 19462747+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda4 10198 19457 74380950 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda5 7775 10090 18603238+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 10091 10197 859446 82 Linux swap / Solaris

If I understand this right, you have all your Linux partitions on an extended partition. If I am not mistaken, you can't add space to an extended partition. If you have the patience, you should wait until someone more knowledgeable than me answers (like Fred).

[proxima_centauri]

Do not do this (sorry proxima, but you forgot UUID), this will most likely get you into UUID hell.

Oh I did not know that, that's how I nuked XP off my old school lappy and everything *seemed* to be fine. I'll have to research this further if I ever attempt such things in the future.

Thanks for the correction, nothing worse than giving out bogus instructions

[MagnusB]

I think it is new from Daryna, fstab uses UUID instead of /dev/xxxx, and UUID's are calculated by size, amongst other things. Changing the size of a partition, you change the UUID, rendering fstab useless and in effect don't have a root partition and you can't boot. Easily solved by removing the UUID in fstab, and use the /dev/ notation instead.