Installing/Uninstalling Ubuntu

If you want to have a Unix based system on your computer or want to play around with a new operating system, you should checkout Ubuntu. This is an open source operating system that you can install on your computer for free along with your windows operating system.

You can do it two ways:

1) Partition your drive
2) Use Wubi Ubuntu Installer

If you are going to do #1, you need to download the Ubuntu ISO file, properly burn it to a disk (use an ISO burner), and use the disk to install it. You can actually test Ubuntu from the disk before installing it which is helpful. However, after I installed it on my computer, I was getting a failed message and that my GNOME was installed incorrectly.

I then decided to use Wubi Ubuntu Installer which was great and didn’t cause any problems. It also doesn’t require your drive to be partitioned.

Now I had to remove the partition I created.

You should follow these steps to remove your partition on a windows dual boot system.

XP Users:
1. Boot your PC with Windows XP CD and select Repair.
2. Then select the OS, once you are there you'll have a command line.
3. Type Administrator password. If Admin password is blank, just press Enter.
4. Type fixmbr, and then press Enter.
5. Restart PC.
6. Delete Ubuntu Partitions.

Vista Users:
1. Boot PC with Windows Vista installation disc.
2. Select a language, a time, a currency, a keyboard or an input method, and then click Next.
3. Click Repair your computer.
4. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.
5. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.
6. Type Bootrec.exe, and then press Enter.
7. Delete Ubuntu Partitions.

To delete your partition, you can follow these steps:

1. Select right mouse button on “My Computer” and select manage
2. Select Disk Management
3. Right mouse button on the partition to delete and select delete partition or delete volume. (Note: Make sure you delete the correct partition. The Ubuntu will not have NTFS as the file system. On Vista, it said that this was not installed by windows so that also might be a hint)

What to do if you do not have the Windows XP or Windows Vista installation disc:

You can create one by downloading the Windows Torrent file.