Ubuntu Installation :: Removing Everything On Dual Boot?
Mar 3, 2010
Can i even format without removing windows in the progress? If not, what would be the best way to just remove everything i have on the computer to get it as close as possible to a new computer? I don't have windows install CD because the laptop had Vista pre-installed. So i must be careful what i remove or my brother won't buy the laptop I'm mostly concerned about killing the GRUB and making me unable to start the computer.
I am ready to reclaim the disk space that is currently being used by XP in my dualboot scenario. Per the Gparted scan below, my hard drive is currently being sequenced as sda1 (NTFS data only, which I mounted in Ubuntu and write my working documents to), sda2 (XP operating system/boot drive). Ubuntu is on sda3, with home on sda4. I'm currently running 9.10.
I would like to eliminate the contents of sda2, and migrate sda1 contents to ext4. Question is, what are the best steps. I have good backups of everything, and sync my NTFS data to a NAS.
Am running Karmic and Windows7 dual booting with separate hard drives. I want to remove Windows 7 and leave Karmic on it's single drive. I am concerned that I will cause a boot problem if I just 'unplug' the Windows 7 drive.
I have installed vista(Preloaded) and Ubuntu 10.10 in dual boot in my laptop. Now i want to get rid of vista, and want to have only Ubuntu, also i want to assign all space to Ubuntu. I have two query's
1. How could i cleanly uninstall Vista from my system? (I Used WUBI to install Ubuntu)
2. Can i install Vista in future? (As my Vista was preloaded, Vista didn't recognize the hard drive on which Ubuntu is installed)
I've got a win7/ubuntu 10.04 dual boot running on my system. I did the usual of installing 7 first, then ubuntu and using it as the default boot option. I now want to get rid of win 7 and expand the ubuntu installation into the free space. My current hdd structure is in the attachment. If I just boot a live cd and gparted to remove the win 7 partitions and expand the ubuntu installation into the free space, will that work or will it have a massive panic? how to I get grub to silently boot after without offering me any boot options?
I have my pc setup with 2 hard disks, my main HD is running Win XP and the second HD is loaded with 9.1, the disk I loaded 9.1 on is a 40 gig HD, I wanted to try out 9.1 as a clean install before mucking around with dual boot. I really like 9.1 and now I want to change the way I am setup so I can run a dual boot. Right now the way it is I go through GRUB to choose either linux or win, it defaults to Linux, I removed the disk the 40 gig drive the other day and when I do I can't boot up, I get an error message telling me something like Grub not found (Duh right I took the HD out) I want to reset my comp so the 40 gig drive is visible to win and do the dual boot with 9.1 inside of windows.
My questions are this.
1. How would change the current boot config. so that windows loads and I don't have to use GRUB to choose my O/S.
2. How would I go about removing 9.1 from the 40 gig drive and leaving it blank so I can utilize it for windows.
my main concern here is getting the pc set back up so I can boot into windows without using the GRUB menu, I'm on my work pc and getting some greif from my boss on this. I'm worried that if I just remove 9.1 from the 40 gig drive that I won't be able to load windows, like when I physically removed the HD from the pc.
I've recently installed Vmware on Vista and I am using that to run Linux. I prefer this method over duel booting as I can quickly switch between the two OSes. So here is what I would like to do.
1) Remove swap partition (not needed).
2) Remove Linux and format partition to NTFS for windows use.
3) Remove Grub.
What I don't want to do.
1) Reinstall Windows Vista (Lots of programs installed).
So I made my netbook a dual-boot machine about 2 months ago - it came with windows 7 and I added ubuntu. I've been running Ubuntu on my desktop machine for a while, so I'm pretty comfortable.
Now I'd like to completely get rid of the windows partition on my netbook and make the whole thing ubuntu. However, I've downloaded and installed so many programs and packages and libraries that I don't want to have to do it again. Is there a way to remove the windows partition (basically expanding the ubuntu side) and keep my programs/settings/libraries/packages/etc on the linux side? Or do I have to erase the partitions and start over with a fresh install?
Today I've decided that I would like to remove my useless, freezing windows install from my Ubuntu laptop and only use Ubuntu... booting windows XP from a virtual box whenever I need to use a Windows application with poor Wine support. Any safe way I can go about doing that? I tried googling this, but all I found was the opposite, remove ubuntu from windows... which is quite sad. Anyway, windows is using up a ton of space that it doesn't need to. It takes me 5 minutes to even get it booted and after using Ubuntu, I have no patience left for the program. What should I do?
I've just installed Ubuntu 10.10 using Wubi inside of Windblows and I want to remove Windblows completely.What filestem does Ubuntu use and how do i delete the NTFS partitions and redistribute the free space once partition removed?I only installed through Windblows cos I couldn't get a decent cd burnt to install from there.Just noticed that it looks like the installer has locked up again becuase there is no mouse action. If it has locked up again, i think it may be the cd drive playing up. If i replace it temporarily with a newer drive will Ubunutu kick up a fuss when i out the old one back in. I don't intend using a cd-rom anyway. i just want to use it as a domain controller and file server.
I'm currently dual-booting Squeeze & Windows XP on a machine i use frequently.
In my experience on the desktop, i now see no reason to have Windows XP as a boot option, & wanted to try & avoid a full re-installation of Debian in order to remove XP (merging it's partition with / ).
I have a checklist that i put together, but wanted to be sure this was all correct before going forward.
1. Perform full back-up of all data.
2. Boot into Debian, through GUI -
System Tools > Disk Utility
- Select HDD (80GB Hard Disk) - Select windows partition ( /dev/sda1 ) - Format /dev/sda1 to Ext4 Filsystem
3. Boot Live CD
- Use gParted to extend /dev/sda2 (was 38GB, will extend to 78GB)
4. Remove XP from the boot menu.
( Note: My ~ folder is on the same physical drive as / (same volume), but i actually store all Media on a separate physical drive which is formatted in NTFS. I plan on reinstalling XP using a virtual hard disk, & sharing that with the virtual machine.Here is a screenshot of my Disk Utility - [URL]
I dual booted opensuse along with vista. I installed opensuse in extended partition, with grub and gave the option as "boot from extended partition". Now everything is fine. I am able to boot into suse as well as vista. Now how can I restore my vista bootloader? I want to uninstall openSuse. When I try restore mbr from hard disk. There is absolutely no change!
I am quite experienced user of Ubuntu desktop / server distributions. Recently my desktop 9.10 disk failed and I decided to reinstall using 10.04. My configuration is a dual disk dual bot system. I have XP Pro SP3 on one disk and Ubuntu 10.04 on second. XP has own, untached MBR ubuntu got Grub 2 installed on the same disk as Ubuntu. Ubuntu disk is booting first in BIOS. Grub 2 detected both system, however I can boot only to Ubuntu. When I am trying to boot XP I got black screen only. Looks like booting is stack in BIOS stage, because crt+alt+del reset system.
I read Ubuntu forum, search Google and did not come with any solutions. My XP MBR is OK. I can boot directly, choosing XP HDD in BIOS as a starting disk. All entries in grub.cfg looks fine to me. I made 3 different clear installations of Ubuntu. Each with the same result. I reinstaled Grub2 with no effect. I wonder if this may be a hardware/Grub 2 compatibility issue. I am using quite old components.My motherboard is Assus P4C800 Delux. I have 5 HDDs 2 CD. Exactly the same configuration was OK with 9.10/XP dual disk dual boot using Grub legacy.
I have winxp and ubuntu 10.04 dualboot. They were working ok. Today I removed old *21 kernel image and headers so grub updated the confs. That's all I did that could cause the win no longer boot. It starts booting, the screen goes black and the PC reboots. I tried safe mode, it started to load some dlls as it usually shows in safe mode but then still reboot.
Code: $ sudo fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
I have Ubuntu 10.10 installed on my laptop.Its a dual boot with XP, have been using ubuntu/xp for a while now..Till now i always used to remove older kernel images after ubuntu update, then update grub and do "sudo apt-get autoclean" never had any problem at all.i skipped the second step, i removed the old kernel image and did "Autoclean" on apt-get but forgot to update grub.
Now after i have reboot, when grub loads i can see only 2 "Memtest" lines in grub list and 1 "windows xp" line.the "Linux kernel generic" line is missing. I can boot in xp (have done just that to post this) but since there is no line in grub list to boot into Ubuntu, cant boot in Ubuntu.Is there any option, something i can do at "Grub" to boot into Ubuntu?
what i did was, remove evolution mail from synaptic, what i wanted to do was just remove the indicator applet from the task bar. i read a bunch of bad stuff about removing evolution from synaptic vs just removing the applet.
im worried. did i break anything or put my security at risk. after, i used a command (older) (sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop)to install ubuntu desktop. because i thought that it would fix evolution. then i went to synaptic and installed a package called evolution. i rechecked evolution in applications menu. however, i notice that i have both a checkable evolution and two evolution icons. nothing 'seems' broken. im not sure if it ever was. and evolution calender pops up as normal, as does the the installed plain evolution. they both seems to be an exact copy of the other.
all i really wanted to do was remove the indicator applet. did i make a serious mistake. since ive had ubuntu, ive reformatted a lot because i was worried i made a mistake of some kind. however now im into the more "make a mistake and fix it stage' as im pretty happy with my current desktop and have worked hard to customize it. the command, sudo apt-get remove indicator-messages removed the mail icon. i still am worried that i broke something, or put my security at risk. also, now i have two mail icons. evolution mail and calendar, and another just called evolution.
I have a (slightly complicated) dual/multi boot system.
I keep getting boot errors (when choosing ubuntu from the grub2 menu)
Code: Serious errors were found while checking the disk drive for /boot
If I switch off and restart, ubuntu will then start without issue.
My setup is like this ....3 disks, one with 10.10 clean install - so Grub2, separate partitions for /, /boot and /home, one with windows 7, one with windows XP and 10.04 wubi (this is my old disk which I will trash once I'm happy with my upgrade to 10.10 & 7 on separate disks.
I installed 7 and 10.10 with ONLY their disks installed. After both were working, I added all disks and rejigged the grub2 menu (using update-grub and StartUp-Manager).
This problem only seems to occur if my previous boot was not 10.10 ( I will investigate this further). It's as if something (grub2 ?, the bios ?) is remembering part of the previous boot and not using the grub2 menu completely.
I had a dual boot machine with fedora 12 and windows vista and I could use grub boot-loader to switch between two. Few days ago windows got corrupt and I have to reinstall it. I put windows 7 now and as usual it erased grub. So to reinstall I put the fedora 12 installation CD on and followed some usual setup steps. When I got the command line I issued the command "grub-install /dev/sda" (sda not hda because It showed bunch of sda, sda1..) but surprisingly it said grub command not found. I remember doing it before while it worked fine.
Have just installed 9.10, again, many failed attempts previously.Cannot get to boot up and show menu on dual boot with Vista initially,However when I delete the grubenv file the system boots ok and works fine.But does not show the grub menu to choose boot up choices.Got the information to delete the file on some posts elsewhere about booting problem, and tried a longshot and got into Ubuntu for the first time from trying to install now for 3 months!The problem is the file grubenv is created each time so on subsequent boot ups the sytem fails to boot again.The Grub version is 1.97 beta 4, most up to date for Karmic I think, I have seen a version 1.98 but dont think its for Karmic?
Is there a way to modify the grub.cfg file to stop this problem ( all posts say dont touch this file??Or install a script to delete the grubenv file on shutdown as a workaround for me, (I have no idea how to do this whatsoever, I'm not familiar with linux at all)I did read that this problem was fixed/patched in Grub version 2, but dosn't seem.so on my system afetr I updated it when I got into Ubuntu.I couldnt find the patch or fix, I got the information I am on about from this post:URL...It seems to say it was fixed or patched by Colin Watson reading through, but I don't really understand whats being said or how to get the patch on my system if indeed there is one?Sorry for being a bit thick about all this, its a bit beyond my brain now, hope somebody can help out as I have enjoyed my brief bit of fun in Ubuntu.
I have a netbook running Windows XP as standard. There is also a recovery partition which came from the factory.
In the past I installed Ubuntu (I think 9.something) from USB key and all worked fine. However my XP became corrupted and I needed to do a repair on it. After this, Ubuntu became removed from the boot select menu.
Since then, Ubuntu has become updated to 10.04, which I now cannot install.
The Live CD tells me there is a "file IO error" and simply stops installation at around 70%.
I did manage to get into Ubuntu from a Live USB using Wubi. However when I chose to install Ubuntu to a Harddrive, the option to "install side by side" was missing.
After reading on the forums, I did a chkdsk /f on Windows and tried again. Now my liveUSB does not show a boot menu!
When I select to boot from USB stick, the screen goes blank with a flashing cursor. Ctrl+alt+dlt reboots.
I'm really lost here! It seems when I fix one problem, another problem arises!
Also when trying to instal Ubuntu within Windows, the process goes through to 100% and asks me to reboot. When I do so, the option for Ubuntu does show in the boot menu. However when I select it, I get an error "Windows boot failed: file wubildr.mbr and status: 0xc00000f - something is corrupt".
I have Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Windows XP installed on my laptop. Usually when booting, I get the GRUB 2 menu and I can boot into either Ubuntu or XP.I was playing around with EasyBCD, then after trying to remove it I was unable to boot into Windows, I used a Windows 2000 CD recovery console to fix the MBR (using: fixboot and fixmbr).Now Windows starts up when I power on, but I don't get the grub menu anymore with an Ubuntu option. If I boot from the Ubuntu Live CD and try to mount my Ubuntu partition (/dev/sda5) I get this error:
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda5, missing codepage or helper program, or other error In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
I recently got a netbook and setup as dual boot between win7 starter and 9.10 (64bit). Win 7 starter is not impressive so i want to nuke it and give the space all to my /USR partion. I am comfortable working with Gparted and assume that i can launch using my gparted live usb and delete the windows partion and then resize the /usr partion.
what changes do i need to make w/ Grub2? I would prefer not to see the Grub menu at all and have it load right the main kernel if possible. Also, if this is possible is there a way to get to the Grub menu during boot should i need to select a different kernel?
I have just installed Ubuntu 10.4 x64 onto a machine with Vista Ultimate x64. When I boot the machine, the Windows option comes up in the GRUB menu. However, when I attempt to boot Windows, I receive the following error: No such device: de80ab9f80ab7d21. error: No such partition. Press any key to continue...
I looked around and found a similar issue at [URL] However, before trying to fix the issue by guesswork or via solutions that worked for a similar, though not necessarily identical problem. I've run the boot info script (see output below) mentioned several places on this site as a valuable input for boot problem tracking. how to get Windows to boot on my computer?
I have searched and read threads about the Bitlocker, grub and TPM issues that might show up, but I can't draw any conclusions as some information contradict each other. To make sure I don't screw up my pc as thought I need to make a new post.
At work I'm supposed to run Windows 7 and encrypt the win-partition with Bitlocker. I have installed Windows, turned on the encryption and it ties into the TPM. But as I am moving over to the *nix department I want to run Ubuntu as dual boot to check everything rusn fine with all the systems I need. Before I installed Windows I partioned the disk:
1,5 GB for system/bitlocker requirement 147 GB for Windows, C: 85 GB which is empty where I intend to install Ubuntu (not formated yet)
I boot into Windows with my bitlocker/TPM key on an USB-stick. Without the usb-stick the pc won't boot. Now, before I try to install Ubuntu I want to make sure to do it the right so I don't mess up the Windows installation or won't be able to boot the pc at all.
There seem to be several "schools" to this. Some suggest I should have installed Ubuntu first, then Windows and then encrypt. Some say, no worries just fire away and install since you are not planning to read the windows-partition from Ubuntu. Or an alternative, install but make sure to deactive the encryption during installation. Some say, install but make sure grub is installed in (multiple choices) location.
After installing karmic with Grub2 I am unable to boot into Archlinux partition. Grub2 has removed the last line of the Archlinux boot stanza! It used to read:-
[Code]....
Following the Grub2 tutorials I have tried editing /etc/grub.d/40_custom as follows:-
[Code]....
But no luck. Only way into Archlinux is to get into the edit shell and manually add the missing line and remove other stuff not needed. I have spent hours trying to resolve this issue and I am fairly p----d off
I am trying to install Ubuntu on a machine that already has Windows 7 on one partition. Obviously I intend to install it on the other free partition. So I downloaded the iso burnt it onto the disk and pop in the disk and the boot the machine. The installation screen comes up I selected the first option (Try Ubuntu without installation), I just see a prompt after a few seconds and then the screen goes blank and nothing happens. Unable to detect a signal, The monitor goes into standby. The same thing happens if I use "install Ubuntu" option as well. I downloaded minimal install version Ubuntu and tried to install with that. since its old school installation, the installation completed without any errors, but when I restart the grub come up and when I select to boot into Ubuntu, I see the same behavior i.e. the screen goes blank and never boots to anything. This is a machine on which I was using 10.4 until yesterday.
When I first installed Ubuntu as a dual-boot (about 18 months ago), I had problems booting to XP, which were eventually solved for me in this thread, which set Windows to boot Ubuntu, rather than the other way round.
I've just had to do a fresh install of Maverick, following a major problem, and I'm back to being unable to boot XP. The error is different from before and I don't want to start guessing at what to do about it and screwing things up still further.
The GRUB menu lists Ubuntu first, then Windows XP. If I choose XP, it takes me to my previous boot menu, with Windows as the first option. However, selecting this gives me
Code: Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <Windows root>system32 toskml.exe
Please re-install a copy of the above file. Windows and Ubuntu are on separate hard drives. XP was fine until I re-installed Ubuntu.
recently sent up another computer as follows:Two sata drives. Windows 7 was installed on the first drive(sda)and booted successfully. This drive was disconnected ( I have had some installs where Unbuntu wipes out the existing C drive eventhough I am installing to D) and Ubuntu was installed to the second drive (sdb). At one point I had to rebuild the grup on the Ubuntu drive and was careful to make it installed on the Ubuntu drive. To my surprise when the PC booted up I saw the Grub menu with a menu entry for Windows. The Windows drive was always the primary drive before the Ubuntu install. I was planning on the Windows drive being the boot drive and using a boot manager to determine where to go from there. If I utilize the BIOS boot option (F12) I can boot each drive individually. I cannot in BIOS set a particular drive to boot - just a hard drive. Everything is working I am just curious why the primary drive does not boot first. IN BIOS the Windows drive is a primary SATA with a lower number that the Ubuntu drive which is listed as a secondary drive.
