Hi again, I appear to have 'screwed' my installation and have tried looking every where to find out how to 'wipe' the installation and do a clean install. Have tried using rescue mode etc all without success. Have tried using fsck etc with no luck. I am able to use the ubuntu shell though and need to know the commands and syntax for this, please.
Many thanks to everyone for the help so far.
Regards

Hya,

I think just simple install will do. However, as you did not describe how screw up your system, so not easy to guess what happened to you.

Happy Penguins!

I tried, but when I try to do an install it comes up with corrupt file/s error or something like that, and I just cannot get over this problem, I have even tried using differeent versions of linux on a live DVD but when I boot it says no bootable media found. Have checked and it seems ok however, I used a cd to create the ubuntu disk.

*edit*

Can you give us some info on your computer? What brand&model is it? How big is your HDD&RAM?
What are the specific ("actual") errors coming up when you boot/install/etc...

I had a problem installing 11.04/10.10/10.04/etc on my one desktop. Turns out it didn't have enough RAM to run the installer right. Plus, having unsupported hardware with no drivers didnt help me any, either.

Anything you can tell us will help greatly.

*edit again*
You said you had access to the shell.. Awesome!
The first gives us a little info about your HDD, and the second tells us more about your computer in general.