Cant Remove Ubuntu

Question

I have Ubuntu loaded on a hard drive it is the only thing on the drive I dont have windows loaded or have a windows disk how can I remove Ubuntu or format the drive. If you have the time I would appreciate a reply to my email Thank You In Advance Roger

Answer 1

Do you have a live USB or CD for ubuntu? If you do, you can boot into the live version of ubuntu and use the program gparted to reformat your hard drive.

Gparted is a pretty simple program to use but a very powerful application that can cause some serious problems if not used carefully. That said, you really have two options for reformatting your hard drive. You could create a new partition table which would completely wipe your hard drive then you could partition it any way you wanted and then format the partitions with gparted. The other option is to just reformat the partition with ubuntu on it.

From your brief explanation of your problem, you could probably just reformat the partition which I will give some instruction for below along with a supplementary link to some more comprehensive instructions.

WARNING:

Both of these processes will remove any data/files you have on the parition that is to be reformatted or the entire hard drive if you create a new partition table. Needless to say, if you have anything you want to keep from ubuntu make sure to save it on an external thumb drive or hard drive. There are ways to retrieve removed files but its not a very pleasant experience.

Reformat Partition with gparted:

First off you will need to have either a liveusb or livecd of ubuntu or linux mint. Boot up into ubuntu or mint and enter the following command into the terminal:

sudo apt-get install gparted
sudo gparted

If gparted is already installed you can skip the first command but running it won't hurt anything. However, installing gparted does require an internet connection but it should come pre-installed with a newer ubuntu iso.

You will then be prompted for a password that should be the same as the password you entered when creating the live media. If successful a screen similar to this one should pop up.

Once the application has loaded and gparted has scanned your drive, Go to the upper right corner of the screen and select the device you wish to work on (the drive with ubuntu on it), click on the partition you wish to format which should be /dev/sda1 if the ubuntu partition is the only thing on your hard drive.

After selecting the partition you wish to format, go up to the menu-bar and select "Partition" then "Format to". This will display a list of different formats. What format you end up choosing will depend on what you plan to install after you remove ubuntu. If you are planning on installing windows, you will need to format it to NTFS. Another linux distro will probably require ext3 or ext4 along with some other partitions like a swap partition.

After you have selected the proper format, gparted will add the formatting process to pending operations. Once you are ready, click the green check mark that has the label "apply all operations". Gparted will format your partition and your done (kinda).

If you are interested in just creating a new partition table, this article should be helpful. Using GParted to Partition a Hard Disk

On a final note, like Marc commented below you will need another installation medium. Whether that is the ubuntu livecd/usb you just used, a linux mint livecd/usb or a windows installation disk, you will need a bootable installation device otherwise you are kinda stuck with a reformatted hard drive with no operating system.

Hope this was of some use and if you have any more questions I or one of the other forum perusers would/should be happy to help.