when to resize partitions

[Stephen Constantinou]

Derek Broughton wrote:
> Stephen Constantinou wrote:
> 
>> Q1) How can I tell which partition was the home partition?
> 
> Best to boot into the Mandriva system and check what partitions are mounted.
>  
>> Q2) Can I assume that if I chose the manual option I will be able to
>> combine all the non windows partitions and then at a different stage
>> allocate it to kubuntu and it will sort out the swop, bootable partition
>> etc.  I am hoping I will not be asked which partitions are for which
>> purpose as I will not know.
> 
> If you use the manual partitioning tool to _delete_ all the unneeded
> partitions, you then back up in the installer and restart the "guided"
> install - it will use all the available free space and partition it
> appropriately
Dear All and Derek

Alas, alack

I did this but ended up with Mandriva, XP, and Kubuntu on my computer. 
It was as though after deleting the partitions and going back one stage 
the deleted partitions were ignored.  I was presented with three options 
that used the word guided:
A) Guided - resize SCSII (0,0,0) partition #9 (sda) and use free space 
(I did not chose this one as I could not understand why I could move the 
slider partition to the far left but not allocate all to Kubuntu)
B) Guided - use entire disk
C) Guided - use the largest continuous free space (I chose this one as 
it appeared to be the suggestion "-it will use all the available free 
space and partition it")
As a result I have moved from this
            SIZE      USED
sda1 fat16    41MB    33MB
sda2 ntfs  78279MB 56634MB
sda4 fat32  3380MB  2366MB

sda5  ext3  4186MB   604MB
sda6  swop  4186MB     0MB
sda7  ext3  8381MB  3316MB
sda8  ext3 28697MB  1216MB
sda9  ext3 28648MB  6842MB
sda10 ext3  4194MB   100MB

to this:
            SIZE      USED
sda1 fat16    41MB    33MB
sda2 ntfs  78279MB 56634MB
sda4 fat32  3380MB  2366MB
sda5  ext3  4186MB   604MB
sda6  swap  4186MB     0MB
sda7  ext3  8381MB  3316MB
sda8  ext3  4375MB   828MB
sda11 ext3 23269MB  2578MB
sda12 swap  1052MB     0MB
sda9  ext3 28648MB  6842MB
sda10 ext3  4194MB   100MB

Before I deleted these partition's I looked at the other options of 
editing the partition and I was confronted with options I did not 
understand: Ext3 Journalling file system, Ext2 Journalling file system 
and many others.

At one stage, I cannot remember what I had done, I was asked to select 
/.  That really confused me.

sda1 and sda4 are probably the recovery partition and the diagnostic 
tools that were installed by default by Dell.

I am at the edge of my knowledge if not beyond it and now I am in a 
worse position than before.  Currently the default OS to boot is 
Kubuntu.  When my wife discovers this she will be really annoyed.

So here are the questions
1) What does the slider bar in option A mean?  Should I have chosen this?
2) How do I achieve my objective of Windows XP and Kubuntu (plus Dell 
recovery and diagnostics)?
3) If I do achieve this will I have to make XP the default or will it be 
done for me?

Any further help appreciated

Yours in desperation

Stephen Constantinou