Ubuntu – How to remove Ubuntu, wipe hard drive and install Windows XP

uninstallwindows

I have ubuntu 11.10, but i want to remove it, format my hard drive and install windows xp, but when i try doing this from the windows installer it says that the hard drive can't be formated so i would like to do it from the ubuntu installer without installing it again. Please help me
thanks.

Best Answer

The easiest way to do this is to probably create a new partition table on the drive from the Ubuntu live CD/DVD or USB flash drive. This is lower-level than just removing all the partitions.

  1. Boot from the Ubuntu live CD/DVD or USB flash drive.
  2. Select Try Ubuntu (not Install Ubuntu).
  3. Run the GParted Partition Editor.
    • To do this, you can click the Ubuntu button at the upper-left corner, type in gparted, then click on the GParted icon when it comes up.
  4. Make sure the proper drive is selected in the drop-down menu at the upper-right corner of the GParted window.
    • If you have other drives and the wrong one is selected, you can lose data on them! You do not want to create a new partition table on the wrong drive.
  5. Click Device > Create Partition Table....
    • Make sure any important files on the drive have been put somewhere else, before doing this!
  6. Click OK in the window that comes up. (You can, and should, almost always stick with the default "MS-DOS" style of partition table.)
  7. Quit GParted and reboot the system.
  8. Install Windows on the newly "blank" disk.

creating a new partition table in GParted
The GParted window will look something like this, though not exactly like it.

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