I have foolishly installed ubuntu as the only operating system on my laptop. I need to wipe the drive and start over. How do I wipe it?

rsvp

Hi and welcome to LQ.

Please remove you email address unless you want LOTS of spam in your inbox.

There's no need to remove everything. Just install what you want (for example: Windows, another distribution of Linux) and it'll take care of removing a previous installation.

1 members found this post helpful.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot


It is not foolish to have Linux as your primary OS. However if you meant to have Windows and Ubuntu the link should give you some guidance.

1 members found this post helpful.

I tried that. Ubuntu will not recognize any other OS. I tried it with windows xp and I tried to add Musix. Nothing works. I went in and changed the boot to the cd/dvd drive and placed the xp disc in the drive. I also tried that with musix. Nothing. Ubuntu has taken over my computer. I've been searching all afternoon and cannot find any way to wipe the drive unless it's a dual boot, which it isn't. Ubuntu alone is the OS.

rsvp

That link says windows should be installed first, which it wasn't and isn't.

rsvp

Sorry to hear that you're having problems but it's just hardly possible. The only explanation I can think of is that you have more than 1 hard drive and Ubuntu has overwritten the Master Boot Record of your first drive and you keep trying to install other operating systems to a secondary drive. Can you confirm how many physical hard drives you have? Also make sure that you install bootloaders onto MBR.

1 members found this post helpful.

I have only one harddrive and ubuntu has taken the whole thing. I need to erase it.

rsvp

I don't know anything about mbr. I did find partitions in the utility disk. It has the main partition and the swap partition. Unbuntu fills them both.

If your xp disk won't boot after you have set the CD drive to first boot priority in the BIOS, that's an xp/microsoft problem as Ubuntu and its bootloader are not available at this point. Ubuntu isn't available until you access the harddrive where its bootloader is. Posting some specifics on whatever error messages you get when you try to boot your xp or other CD might be helpful.

1 members found this post helpful.

When you insert an XP installation CD, does it boot into XP installer or it loads Ubuntu straight away?

1 members found this post helpful.

I'm making progress! I didn't realize I had to not only select the cd/dvd drive, but also move it to the top of the list. I did that and Windows booted. It loaded all the files then said it was starting windows. Then I got this message:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shuyt down to prevent damage to your comuter.

If this is the first time you've seen theis stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears againn, follow these steps:

Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drice to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical information:
*** stop: 0x0000007B (0xF78D2524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

thank you so much! I feel hopeful.

hh

PS. I have 2 computers. I'm online on the desktop now, trying to fix the laptop.

It was loading ubuntu straight away, but I figured out why. I didn't realize I had to not only select the cd/dvd drive, but also move it to the top of the list. I did that and Windows booted. It loaded all the files then said it was starting windows. Then I got this message:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical information:
*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF78D2524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

rsvp - and thank you for helping me. You're very kind. I'm online on the desktop now, trying to fix the laptop.

hh

hh

PS. I have 2 computers. I'm online on the desktop now, trying to fix the laptop.

No harm in trying the restart as it advises; you haven't got a working system, so you can't 'damage' it.
You need to understand that MS hates to share with other systems; it always assumes its going to be the only one.
This is why ( for a dual boot MS+Linux), you would have to install MS first. Linux doesn't mind sharing.

To confirm above advice, there's no need to re-format/erase previous systems. New installs will overwrite them anyway (they may ask for permission first; Linux would/should)

I forgot to mention I had already done that and got the same messaged the second time.

hh

I put the ubuntu disk back in and partitions came up. I was able to delete the partitions then put xp in but it came up with the same error code.

I'm going to try reinstalling ubuntu then overwriting it again, or deleting the partitions again. Ubuntu quit working after I tried to install xp. It had a grub error.

hh