Remove Vista from internal drive

Asked by Ed Ballantyne

I have a Compaq desktop that came with Vista that became too slow to use. I finally got it to restore to factory, but it still did not perform. I tried to install Ubuntu alongside, but I could not get it to see Ubuntu as a boot option. I then loaded Ubuntu on an external drive, moved it up on my boot list, and am running Ubuntu off the external drive. (goodbye windows!) I would like to get rid of my Vista from the internal drive, wipe it and install only Ubuntu. When I try to format the internal drive partition, I get an "error creating partition table: helper exited with exit code 1: error calling fsync (2) on /dev/sda: input/output error.
I am new to Linux, but fed up with Windows issues. What is the best way for me to uninstall vista and start over with Ubuntu alone?

Thanks

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Massimo Forti (slackwarelife) said :
#1

The best way to remove Windows from your PC is install the Ubuntu directly to the internal HD. If you don't want to do it, you can install GPARTED (if you haven't it in your installed software).
Enter and umount the internal HD: when you are in gparted you can do it by a right mouse click on /dev/sdXX, after this you can format the HD with the filesystem you want. Thancks many.

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delance (olivier-delance) said :
#2

Error message looks bad.
Boot on Ubuntu. System->Administration->Disk Utility and check SMART data about internal disk.

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Ed Ballantyne (ejbtyne) said :
#3

Yesterday I installed gparted, but was unable to see my internal drive with it. I don't know why I was able to see and format the internal disk today, but now that Vista is gone I can start from scratch on the internal.
SMART self assessment was good, only one warning for current pending sector count, all others in spec. 12 hour shifts, I will continue tomorrow.
Thanks

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