Computer: Dell Latitude d630

Currently boots: Windows xp and outdated incomplete version of Ubuntu

Goal: Completely wipe my computer (I'm pretty sure it has various viruses) and start from scratch with the new full version of Ubuntu as my sole OS

So from what I can gather so far, if Windows was my only OS, if I were to put in a cd of the new full version of Ubuntu, based on the install prompts it offers it will automatically wipe everything when I install it. Firstly I'm wondering if this is true. If this is true, if I then go to install Ubuntu off of the cd will it do the same thing for me and wipe out both of my OS'? If this is not true and it will only wipe out 1 OS should I uninstall windows and overwrite the old Ubuntu or uninstall the old Ubuntu and overwrite windows? Lastly if I'm way off the mark right now and what I'm talking about makes no sense or is not possible or theres just an easier way to accomplish getting Ubuntu as my sole OS please let me know! Thanks in advance! -Jake

Just boot from the CD, choose to install and when it comes to partitioning choose the option to let Ubuntu use the whole disk.

You can use the use entire Disk option in the installation wizard it will format all your drives n install a fresh copy of ubuntu in the selected drive. The second option you have is select manual partition set up (or whtevr it says in the wizard) and delete all the available partitions create a new set of partition and install Ubuntu.

Thanks for the help! Definitely sounds easy enough. When I let the new Ubuntu take over the whole disk space will that delete everything including viruses or should I run Klam or some other program when the install is done?

After the whole disk is erased there won't be any traces of virus so don't worry. BTW do you have only one windows partition? I am asking you this because if you use the entire disk all your data will be lost. There are way in which you can save your data. Kindly tell us about your partition structure.

I'm backing up anything remotely desirable on an external hd so I'm perfectly fine with all data being lost. I have to apologize I'm new to a lot of this and sort of teaching myself this stuff as I go so I've only just now learned about disk partitioning in trying to research this little project. So yeah I'm not completely sure how my disk is partitioned or how to get a look at it yet but as soon as I figure that out I'm more than happy to share. If its any help this was an out-of-the-box-straight-from-dell laptop and I hadnt done anything to it until I started looking into linux and downloaded Ubuntu (9.04 I think?) so if I had to guess I'd say theres only 1 windows partition but I could be completely wrong.

You can use your Ubuntu CD to get partition information if you want to post it here. After booting the CD and selecting Try without installing, open a terminal and type: sudo fdisk -l (lower case Letter L in the command). Post it here.

If you do have Ubuntu 9.04, it still uses Grub Legacy which is very different from the newer Grub2 on later releases of Ubuntu.

Well if have completely backed up all your important data you can go ahead and install ubuntu using the whole disk. If not kindly follow the steps mentioned by yancek.