[dba-Tech] Low-Level Format

Hi Jim,

What I have decided to do is dedicate a 32GB thumb drive to the Linux
install. I have checked the BIOS and discovered that I can specify the
boot-order to USB then CD/DVD and finally hard disk. One of the hard disks
in my old squeeze is 250GB so I'm going to partition it into 3 pieces, one
Ext2, one swap and the rest NTFS. Then, I hope, when I install Linux again,
I'll tell it to use the swap partition for Swap, and use the Ext2 partition
for data storage.

On a side note, there's a free utility called MS-Access-to-MySQL available
from BullZip.com that does just what its title says. It will inhale any
Access database and then create its equivalent in your MySQL installation.
I've done this numerous times and it works like a charm. From there it's a
cinch to copy the Access FE to a new name and then redirect the copy to
look at MySQL instead of the Access BE. BullZip has two other similar
utilities which convert Access databases to SQL Server and Postgres. These
are Windows utilities but once you've got the databases into your Windows
MySQL then it's a cinch to copy the files into the Linux installation. The
folks at BullZip have done their homework: pesky things like data-type
conversion are automatic and painless. For anybody wishing to port their
Access databases to MySQL, BullZip has my hearty endorsement.

Arthur