Reformat a Hard Disk where previously has been installed ubuntu

Asked by Stathis D.G.

I have lost a New 40 Gb hard disk with ubuntu trying to learn and use the above OS.
I partitioned the HD in 2 partitions of 20Gb each and installed Windows 98. Then, after trying ubuntu 6.06 on a CD, I was amazed to see how automatically I have been connected to other computers of our business and Internet. I decided to install it on the HD and installed all updates available. I could access windows or ubuntu at will, and that was fantastic. Well, here started my trouble:
I thought it would be better to reformat my hard disk and use 1 partition with the full 40 Gb for both operating systems. Now I can not reinstall windows, I can not reinstall ubuntu, I can not use fdisk , I can not format anything, I can not uninstall ubuntu, I lost my HD. Is that correct ? The first thing that ubuntu developers should do is to provide a simple way to uninstall ubuntu as it is possible with windows. Do you have any suggestion ?

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Hanusz leszek (leszek-skynet) said :
#1

Hello,

I don't really understand your question, what exactly did you do ?
Did you format only your windows partition or also the linux partitions ?
Can you still boot to ubuntu ?

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amit (amityy2002) said :
#2

hey try this one :
first of all download a ".iso bootable file" from the following link and make a bootable cd form nero by just opening this file "with nero": now reboot the system and in the dos prompt type fdisk/mbr
now remove the cd and again reboot:
if u had not deleted ur windows then u will be able to boot it into windows ;
or if had deleted that then again reinstall windows first and then install ubuntu in different drives

http://www.allbootdisks.com/downloads/ISO/AllBootDisks_ISO_Image_Downloads25/DOS6.0_bootdisk.iso

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DannyR (dannyr) said :
#3

Do not do what amit said. Boot from your Ubuntu disk and use the liveCD to fix whatever problem you had or reinstall ubuntu. Alternatively install windows. You cannot really have two OS's on the same partition but Wubi (http://www.cutlersoftware.com/ubuntusetup/wubi/en-US/index.html) is the closest you'll get.

"The first thing that ubuntu developers should do is to provide a simple way to uninstall ubuntu as it is possible with windows."
Windows doesn't let you uninstall idiot! It just lets you format the drive, exactly the same as Ubuntu.

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Fnx (td-safemail-tmp) said :
#4

Please note, depending of the "File System" you used for reformating you partition, you have size limitation.
If you used (as it is likely for a windows 98) a FAT32 fs, you are limited to 32Go by partition, hence probably the trouble you get into by changing from 20GO to 40Go your partition size.

Here is a small table for some file systems.
Note that native linux file systems like ext2, ext3, reiserfs are less constrained, but are not shown in this table)

MAX SIZE OF A PARTITION
Filesystem FAT(16) FAT32 NTFS HFS+
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OS
 Windows 2000 4 Go* 32 Go 16 To -
 Windows XP / Vista 4 Go* 32 Go 16 To -
 Mac OS X 10.1.x - 128 Go - 2 To
 Mac OS X 10.2.x - 128 Go - 8 To
 Mac OS X 10.3.x - ( -> 128 Go) - 16 To
 Mac OS X 10.4.x - ( -> 128 Go) - 16 To

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hexrayz (raybrincat) said :
#5

Hi guys,
I am new to Linux - ubuntu 8.10 (just created the cd).
I would like to ask the following questions.:

what kind of file system does ubuntu 8.10 use ?
Can you install it on Fat32 or NTFS?
And how can you create partitions and format a new hard disk using ubuntu?

thanks for your patience

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marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said :
#6

You need to have more of 10 giga of free space on the existent Windows partition.

Ubuntu when install itself on the hard disk will resize your existent partiton and create a dedicated ext3 partition.

If you boot your pc from "Ubuntu standard desktop 32 bits install cd" you will get a very easy install steps simply please tell Ubuntu to resize your existent partition and give more or less 10 giga of space to Ubuntu.

Hope this helps

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