I'm having some problems trying to uninstall Ubuntu
 

Okay, so here's the story--


I have two hardrives on my laptop--- on one I have Windows XP installed, and the other Ubuntu. I have decided, quite to my own dismay, that Ubuntu just isn't me. So, I've made several attempts at trying to uninstall it. I read in some forum that I should load from my Ubuntu boot cd and delete the linux partition. However, after doing this and restarting my computer, I get a black screen that says basically GRUB had an error loading. And there is no way to get around this to go to my XP unless I reload the Ubuntu cd and reinstall it and then restart again and choose to boot my XP OS. I've done this twice to see if perhaps I made some error, but... nope, this just doesn't seem to be the right way to get rid of Ubuntu.

One of my other problems is that I don't have my Windows XP installation cds anymore, so I can't just install XP over Ubuntu (I don't even know if I could do that, I'm just saying even if it's possible I still can't do it).

Does anyone have a way for me to do this? I just want to basically wipe all traces of Ubuntu and GRUB away on that one hardrive and keep all my information on my XP hardrive the same.


Any help you guys could give me would be GREATLY appreciated!

Paige

Hmm, I think it's something like that:

If you have installed grub on the MBR of the windows hard drive (should be possible) then just point it to default to windows without prompting. Then you can safely clean the other disk.

If the boot sector is on the MBR or simply on your ubuntu hard disk, you shouldn't have a problem, when, you completely clean the hard drive and after that set window's drive as the bootable one.

I think it all comes down to where and how grub is installed.

Just my two cents, might as well be wrong.

Hmm, well the MBR is on the Ubuntu hardrive. However, my problem is that I have no idea how to completely erase the drive because it hasn't been detected by my Windows XP ever since I installed Ubuntu onto it. Like, usually if I wanted to wipe a drive I would just go to My Computer, select the drive, and then format it. And then---Voila! It would be wiped.... But since its not being detected, I'm totally dumbfounded :(


so... how would I go about doing this then? Oh, and how can I set it so that my Windows drive is the bootable one?

Which one is your boot drive, the XP drive or the other one? You would have to go into BIOS and check.

if it's the XP disk, you need to restore the MBR. Most people do this using a windows install disk but I understand that this isn't an option. Unless, of course, you knew someone who was willing to lend you one just to do the repair. Any windows disk should be fine, it needn't be the one you used to install. Alternatively, you can make yourself a windows or a DOS boot disk (both can be downloaded from the internet), boot off the floppy and issue the command fdisk/mbr. This is obviously more work but should be just as efficient.

Edit: having GRUB on the MBR of a second disk does not render it invisible to windows. And how sure are you that GRUB is really on the Ubuntu drive?

I know I'm going to sound like a complete computer illiterate when I say this--but I don't know how to check my BIOS. I can tell you, however, that when I start up my computer it takes me to this black screen and lets me select which OS I want. The first three are Ubuntu (regular, safe mode, and graphics-lite version) and the bottom two are Windows XP (media and embedded)... and if I just wait and don't touch anything, it will load Ubuntu.



And when I said before that my Windows XP doesn't show my Ubuntu hardrive anymore, I left something out---it won't show it in My Computer, but if I go to my Device Manager it will---and it says its working too (but I can't view anything else about it).


I'm about 60-70% sure that when I installed Ubuntu I only let it install on that my Ubuntu hardrive so I don't think GRUB is on my Windows drive.... but I'm going to try what you said about the DOS disk and I'll get back to you if this isn't the case.

Take that laptop to a computer guru you know, and have them make the quick fix. The tech kid at Best Buy can do it. A small bribe in one hand and the laptop in the other should net you a fixed machine.

Do not try it yourself. If you are not familiar with poking around the bios, you shouldn't be altering the boot partitions either. You can EASILY lose everything.

Good luck

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)



Haha yeahhh! I did it! I just used the BIOS cd and deleted whatever was on my other hardrive and insalled a new extended BIOS. And it worked! I have my old computer back :p





Thanks so much guys for helping me out!