[SOLVED] Adept Manager problem

[solidus126]

Hello all. I have been running into a few problems with Adept and package management in general. Lately, I have tried installing a few different packages, with adept only to hang up on me when it neared completion.

Something I had tried in the past was to issue the command

sudo dpkg --configure -a

and it would clear out my problems (heard about it in another thread), but now it runs into problems too. Any suggestions? I am using kernel 2.6.24-18-generic. Here is the terminal output from running the command.

solidus126@lappy486:~$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
[sudo] password for solidus126:
dpkg: status database area is locked by another process
solidus126@lappy486:~$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
Setting up cupswrapperhl2040 (2.0.1-2) ...
ERROR : Brother LPD filter is not installed.
/usr/local/Brother/cupswrapper/cupswrapperHL2040-2.0.1: 64: cannot create /usr/share/cups/model/HL2040.ppd: Directory nonexistent
chmod: cannot access `/usr/local/Brother/inf/brHL2040rc': No such file or directory
chmod: cannot access `/usr/local/Brother/inf': No such file or directory
 * Restarting Common Unix Printing System: cupsd                         [ OK ]
cp: cannot stat `/usr/share/cups/model/HL2040.ppd': No such file or directory
dpkg: error processing cupswrapperhl2040 (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 cupswrapperhl2040
solidus126@lappy486:~$ lpadmin: No such file or directory

Also, I have one more question. I am going to have to reformat my Windows partition and reinstall XP since a virus recently destroyed it. My partition table has a really small ~50MB partition, followed by the Windows partition ~20GB, and then by my Kubuntu ~60GB and the swap partition for it. Currently the 50MB partition is assigned sda1, XP is sda2, and Kubuntu sda3. Is it safe to eliminate the small 50MB partition, and tack it on to the new Windows partition, and Kubuntu would have no problem booting up next time (other than having to edit my GRUB menu)?

Thanks!
-solidus126