You can do a couple of things. On a cisco switch such as a catalyst 2900 & 3500 series switches, you can just shut the port down. It treats each port as a fast ethernet interface, so just log into the switch, go to interface configuration, and then do a shut.
Switch>enable
Switch#conf t
Switch#(config)int fa 0/1
Switch#(config-int)shut
This will work for most stackable cisco switches. Hope this helps.
