How do I uninstall/erase Ubuntu from my T23 new HD?

[BDMK]

i got a 40GB HD for my secondary T23 and i just found out it had ubuntu on it.

i tried to boot it from BIOS from the CD drive with my XP CD in it, but it just keeps ignoring the temp boot order and goes straight to grub loader 1.5 and then onto ubuntu.

can someone pls help?

[rkawakami]

So, pressing the F12 key does bring up the boot menu but you can't get it to boot your XP disk? If so, then I'd say try another CD boot disk.

[BDMK]

hi ray,

i tried two XP discs, both of which had worked for me in the past and no dice...

could it be some boot drivers were messed up by ubuntu?

p.s.: i hate linux. ive seen it once before on a PC i was configuring for a relative-absolutely couldn't get it out so i left it in there...at least you can reformat windows out of a hard drive, this thing doesn't go away...

[RealBlackStuff]

Download either Killdisk or DBAN (both free on the web), and burn a CD from the resp. .ISO file.
Wipe the HD with that, provided you get F12 to 'listen' to you.
Alternatively, change the bootorder in the BIOS.

[ajkula66]

BDMK wrote:

could it be some boot drivers were messed up by ubuntu?

p.s.: i hate linux. ive seen it once before on a PC i was configuring for a relative-absolutely couldn't get it out so i left it in there...at least you can reformat windows out of a hard drive, this thing doesn't go away.

No reason to hate an OS because you have no idea what you're doing...

Any proper XP retail install disk will format the drive for you...

[visionguru]

hi ray,

i tried two XP discs, both of which had worked for me in the past and no dice...

could it be some boot drivers were messed up by ubuntu?

p.s.: i hate linux. ive seen it once before on a PC i was configuring for a relative-absolutely couldn't get it out so i left it in there...at least you can reformat windows out of a hard drive, this thing doesn't go away...

You hate Linux because you have no idea? That's interesting logic.

Anyway, the problem you are facing has NOTHING to do with Linux. It's either the CD or the CD drive, because if the BIOS can boot from your CD, it wouldn't have loaded Linux from the HDD.

[jdhurst]

You need to delete all the partitions on the hard drive first. FDISK will do this, then FDISK /MBR, and then use Windows to format the drive and install. This generally works for me. ... JDH

[BDMK]

i used different XP CDs, all of which have worked for me before, and i also swapped out the disc drives, to make sure its neither a faulty XP CD nor a faulty disc drive. (of course, i first changed the boot order to CDROM first in bios.)

also tried booting from burned gparted and fdisk CDs too...

still, ubuntu's grub loader 1.5 immediately takes over the boot and proceeds to ubuntu (which, again, to make matters even worse, happens to be pw-protected on this HD so i cannot do anything with it either lol).

before i stomp on this HD, i would appreciate any additional last-ditch ideas/info from anyone...

EDIT: and let me just briefly add, this was my almost exact other previous experience with trying to remove/reformat a HD with linux/ubuntu on it before (on someone else's PC). and fyi, i had reformated/erased/reconfigured HDs with windows (or without an OS) many times in the past with no problems of note. that's why i dislike linux-it just won't go away for me...

[jronald]

Im inclined to think the CR-Rom is flaky also. Can you swap it for a different one? I started on T22's the graduated up to 23's and 30's. I had an old early CD-Rom that I never could boot from. Swapped in a DVD-Rom and the problem went away. Moved the CD to a different machine and had the same issue. It would not boot without the driver being loaded first. Never did figure it out. Stripped the rails off, picked up a DVD-RW and pitched the POS.

Ron

[emeraldgirl08]

I'm in love w/ Linux

and love Windows.

and love Gummi Bears

Have you tried the Killdisk??? I think a total write-over of your hard drive is in order here!

Have you got a USB hard drive enclosure?

edit: lol my last post didn't make any sense. Too many distractions here.

[Paul Pennington]

My recommendation to kill the zombie Ubuntu hard disk:

1. Pull the hard disk completely out.
2. Get your thinkpad booting on a CD or (better) floppy disk.
3. Reinstall hard disk and wipe it with the utility from the manufacturer's site.
4. If it still lives, put it in an external USB enclosure (or ultrabay adapter) and try again.
5. Let us know if you need the ultimate fix -- a debug script that writes zeroes to the boot track.

Good luck...

[virge]

I use Truecrypt and use it encrypt an entire drive. I think it writes to the MBR and even AFTER I'd reloaded the computer using IBM restore discs, it would still load up Truecrypt. The way I got rid of it was by downloading MHDD (google it) and wiping the MBR. That worked.

[Russ67]

I keep a Win 98 boot disk just for times like this. Boot the 98 disk, run fdisk and delete the existing partitions. I'm trying out Linux for the first time. I installed Ubuntu on my spare computer first, then deleted it using the above method and then installed Freespire. I'm pretty impressed with either one so far.

[sncdrvr]

Had this same exact problem myself on some used hard drives I aquired with parts machines and a new Hitachi on which I had installed Backtrack 3(Linux). Google "fix master boot record". Need to run "fixmbr" from the recovery console of XP disk, then format. This is only way I've found to restore to Windows from a Linux install. Check this out http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixthepro ... airmbr.htm Edit: Let me add, you need to boot directly from the cd, if the F12 key is not available to change the temporary boot order then use the F1 key to change the boot order in bios. The cd needs to boot before the hard drive.