Sam, When I got my laptop with W98 pre-installed, I also could not delete W98 without reformatting the HD. You *may* be able to delete W98 by using an "uninstall" program, but to use that you really need Windoze installed.
I have seen some utilty programs that are supposed to cleanup files left by Windoze --- I would suggest checking Simtel or ZDNet or some of the other freeware/shareware sites. I do not know what your problem is with LFNs. W9x uses 8.3 internally (alias file) and just uses LFNs as visible file names, very similar to what the Leading Edge Word Processor did that came with my first PC computer in 1986. I have successfully deleted LFNs in DOS by first RENaming the file and then deleting it, e.g.: For file: Some long file with spaces.ext is displayed in DOS as: some lon.ext REN some?lon.ext some_lon.ext DEL some_lon.ext I have and use Partition Magic with DOS. There is a version of PM for Windoze and because most of the OSes are Windoze, Power Quest uses that in their advertisements. I recently wrote to Power Quest asking if they still included DOS versions as the upgrade letters that I received did not mention DOS and they indicated that it did. In addition to PM, there are a bunch of on-the-fly partitioners available. Roger Turk Tucson, Arizona USA Sam Heywood wrote: . > According to the book you can install Caldera OpenLinux directly . > from the CD-ROM only if you can boot to the CD-ROM. Otherwise you . > have to install Windows in order to install Partition Magic so that . > you can partition your hard drive for installing OpenLinux. Also . > you have to install Windows in order to install a program named . > BootMagic so that it will write a boot loader onto the MBR. There . > are probably some work-arounds to avoid this hassle. Maybe there . > are some DOS programs or some Linux programs that can do this for . > me, but the book doesn't offer any suggestions for work-arounds. . > As I am a complete newbie to Linux I can't yet figure out a . > work-around for avoiding the need to first install Windows. It . > seems that the book assumes that the user of OpenLinux would want . > to have a choice of booting to either Windows or OpenLinux. I want . > to set up the PC so that I will have a choice between booting to . > DR-DOS or OpenLinux. I am astonished that Caldera's OpenLinux . > package doesn't tell the user how to do this. I have successfully . > set up the PC so that I can do this. What I did was to first . > install DR-DOS so that I could install Windows 95. After installing . > Windows 95 I installed OpenLinux. Next I booted from my A drive . > with a DR-DOS sytem disk and ran "sys C:". Then by using DR-DOS I . > tried to get rid of the wincrap because I didn't want Windows. A . > problem remains in that I can't get rid of the wincrap, LFNs, and . > empty Windows directories, etc. Until I can get rid of the wincrap, . > CHKDSK won't work because CHKDSK doesn't like LFNs. LFNs are one of . > the worst bugs in the Windows system. They were invented most . > probably for the purpose of causing much aggravation and . > consternation for people who like to work within DOS. Windows 3.1 . > was compatible with DOS and it didn't use LFNs. IMNSHO, Windows 95 . > and above should have been designed with the same DOS . > compatibilities as Windows 3.1. Another great advantage of Windows . > 3.1 over Windows 95 and above is that Windows 3.1 will let the user . > choose which version of DOS he wants to use for running the Windows . > GUI program. Also IMNSHO, the anti-trust laws ought to prohibit . > MicroSoft from resorting to the anti-competitive practice of allowing . > only a specified MS version of DOS to run the Windows GUI program.
