How Can I Correctly Uninstall/Reinstall on Dual-Boot System?

[Driver]

Computer is set up to dual-boot Ultimate Edition and Vista on its single hard drive. I wish to remove Ultimate Edition - temporarily! - so that I can remove a bunch of stuff from Vista and then reinstall Ultimate Edition with larger partitions this time (I ran out of space ). I have had trouble in the past because I stupidly thought that all I had to do was to delete all my linux partitions. This left me with a computer that would not boot into Vista (the only remaining OS). Rather than scrambling to repair the MBR/MFT/Partition-Table stuff (and panicking for days), I thought it best to ask the proper way to do it. Here is my proposed game-plan:

1) Create a text file containing all the things that I've installed through Synaptic Package Manager and including the repositories(?). Add any other changes that I remember doing.DONE
2) Export Firefox bookmarks into an html file. Write down usernames & passwords. Copy the textfiles, wallpapers, jpodder & MiroTV subscriptions, etc. that I have downloaded.DONE
4a) Completely remove Ultimate Edition and the EXT3 partition & swap partition that US resides in/uses.
4b) Do this in such a way that the bootloader is removed - I wish to be able to turn on my computer and have it boot Vista like it did the day I bought the thing.
5) Copy as much as I can off the Vista "side" onto my 8gig flash drive and put it on my other computer, run a program that will "maximize free space" at the end of the hard drive so that I can then create a LARGER linux area.
6) Reinstall Ultimate Edition 2.3 and live happily ever after ( ) or at least until 2.4 comes out and I get to learn how to deal with upgrading.

I should be able to handle everything except for 4a and 4b. I would really appreciate instructions on doing so in such a way that my original Vista boot record (if that's what it's called?) is restored so that I don't have to go through the horror of repairing the hard drive again. Also, suggestions as to the best partitioning strategy to use would be great; at present I have one ext3 partition for everything (plus 1.5gig swap partition - computer has 1gig of ram).

My goal is to increase the size of the linux area from 9 gigs to 14 or 15 gigs. Still not enough but I think it'll be all I can provide at present.

Secondary goal is to print the instructions out so that I only have to ask how to do this one time.

As always, thank you in advance!

BtW - In my continuing efforts to keep my posts short and to the point, I may have left something out that you might require to properly help me. Please do not hesitate to ask for clarification if required.

[Admin-Amir]

Hello Driver.

way can't you just use Parted Magic for delete the partition of Linux,
and then to get the MS grow to the all of the HDD.
then,just make the process of the fixmbr for vista?
if you UN install the U.E that will not erase the partition,
it's just will delete the system but not the partition.
with Parted Magic,you can just delete the partition and make the MS partition larger.
then as I have said make the fixmbr for vista.
way you do not burn the vista from your HDD,so you will have the disk from the image of vista
that is on your HDD in the begining of your HDD?

[Cell]

1:back up,and reinstall vista on a smaller partition.
2:get rid of vista
3:get an external drive,and install a os on it.

[Driver]

I may have been allowing my fears to cloud common sense. I don't know why, but I was thinking that there had to be a gap between removing Ultimate Edition and reinstalling it.

I can shrink the Vista partition any time that I've managed to pull its crap away from the end of it. This will NOT affect the operation of Ultimate Edition.

I can then simply boot from the Ultimate Edition dvd, click on Install, and then tell it to delete the existing linux partition (keeping the 1.5gig swap partition - I was smart enough to place it at the very end of the drive) and create a new, bigger one from the space (the former Ultimate Edition partition and the extra space I got from shrinking Vista's).

Then just continue with the Ultimate Edition install in the new, bigger partition as if I was installing it for the first time. I assume that it will automagically deal with the bootloader stuff since it made it in the first place.

That should leave me with a perfectly-functioning dual-boot Ultimate Edition/Vista system - like I've got now, only more room in Ultimate Edition.

Am I correct in my assumptions, or is my thinking flawed?

[Driver]

The space that I can devote to Ultimate Edition has now grown from 10.56gig to 25.56gig.

I will be reinstalling it soon. Hopefully I will have no trouble deleting the 10.56gig partition and creating the 25.56gig one.

I will likely just create one ("/") partition for everything again as it is just daylight here and I will soon need to take my computer to a family-member's home to do some handyman type work there (as I use it as a reference tool).

But what is the recommended partitioning scheme? IOW, how should I set up a 25.56gig drive space for Ultimate Edition?

I am still unclear on how much space to allocate for "/" vs. "/home" and I do not wish to have one partition with free space and still be unable to install applications, download things, etc. because it turned out that I'd given extra space to the wrong partition.

-Driver

Off-topic: I have been in Vista OS for hours now as I've been working on moving/removing things to make more space available. Vista... sucks. I've realized that there are only a handful of things that I will still be using it for that I have yet to find linux alternatives for. If I manage to find said alternatives, I will find myself with a lot more space to devote to Ultimate Edition (like the entire rest of the hard drive ).

[Admin-Amir]

Driver here is tip for you.

you can just fix space for the installation of Ultimate Edition
just look on the screen shot.

Parted Magic

[Driver]

Not sure what you mean. My hard drive was not like that. It had the large NTFS Vista partition, then the ext3 Ultimate Edition one, then the linux swap one, then a small NTFS "HP Recovery" one. When I further shrank the large Vista partition, it gave me free space that I could give to Ultimate Edition - but it was before the Ultimate Edition partition.

Do you mean that I could have just enlarged the Ultimate Edition partition, even though the space I was going to add to it was before it instead of at the end? Oh well, I'd already messed a few things up so I needed to reinstall anyway.

Speaking of reinstalling, I hope that I do not have to do so again so soon, but...

I had some time earlier and wanted to let Update Manager run its updates (for the first time on this install). It presented me with the list that it found when I installed. I decided to click on the check button in case there were more in the time that had passed. Then I let it start the update. It did and told me to restart my system. I finished listening to the audiobook and closed my programs and then rebooted.

After the boot menu, I was presented with the following errors:
[0.473598] ACPI: Aborted because junk in compressed archive.
[3.278506] crc error
[3.333586] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root from unknown block (0,0)

And my laptop locked up with my capslock button blinking at me. I had to power down. When I tried the second boot option (recovery(?) mode on that kernel) it scrolled up a lot of text and then locked up again with errors.

I was able to boot into Ultimate Edition with the third option (regular boot with the first of the two older kernels).

Is there a way to fix this and to check my system to make sure that none of the other dozens of updates were flawed as well as the kernel updates? Or should I just reinstall again?

Thanks!

[Cell]

Just don't use that kernel...and next time look at the update list.