Ubuntu Help. I have two questions this time?

Question

I finally got my sound card working great after tinkering around with command lines on Ubuntu but now I have two questions that I came across while playing around with Ubuntu because I'm starting to get the hang of this OS and am liking it's reliability and speed better than Windows XP (not that I hate XP, it's just I need an OS that is faster for school purposes). So without further wait here are my questions.

1) How can I keep access to my NTFS partition of my Hard Drive though Ubuntu on the desktop so when Ubuntu starts up the drive will appear on the top right corner of the desktop so I can access it without always going through the menus?

2) How do I uninstall GRUB from my system. I'm using Acronis OS Selector to select my OS but whenever I boot up Ubuntu the GRUB part still shows which is slowing down boot up time considering I already have a selecter. So is there a way of doing that without damaging the integrity of both OS's?

If anyone can help with this that would be awesome. Thanks

Answer 1

1) the "menus" you're referring to are just the "Places" tab, and from there it's pretty easy to access your HD partition

2) i don't think there is a way, but it doesn't slow it down too much, i can reboot my computer (quad-boot :] ) in less than a minute and that's with a lot of choices