How to uninstall Ubuntu on dual boot Windows XP using Windows only
My dual boot Ubuntu installation on Windows XP got hopelessly trashed. Endless command line errors upon booting. After much searching, I found an easy way to uninstall it using Windows only.
It took me about three minutes and it worked flawlessly. Hope this helps someone else. (And now I can reinstall Ubuntu!)
Quick instructions: (detailed instruction follow)
A.) Use Disk Manager in Windows to delete the Ubuntu partitions.
B.) Boot off your Windows XP CD.
- Choose “Repair”
- When it asks for the installation number, I put in “1″, and it worked fine (you may want to test this first to be sure.)
- Enter Admin password.
- At the command prompt type “fixmbr”, then confirm. Windows will overwrite the dual boot info in the MBR that Ubuntu put there.
- Reboot!
Full details:
Uninstall Ubuntu using Windows
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu…+question/1800
Suppose you are running Windows. If so, follow these steps:
1) In Windows, launch Disk manager and remove every partition used by Ubuntu (root partition, swap, …)
2) Reboot with your Windows CD. When asked, choose “repair” and launch fixmbr. This command replaces GRUB with Windows bootloader.
3) Reboot again and you have done.Once you are done, it you want to recover the space for Windows that was once used by Ubuntu. You can use the steps outlined above (going the the Disk Manager, etc). To create a new NTFS partition and assign it as something like the D: drive (or some other letter) to be used for data and so forth.
How to use Disk Manager
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000
To start Disk Management:
1. Log on as administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
2. Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK.
3. In the console tree, click Disk Management. The Disk Management window appears. Your disks and volumes appear in a graphical view and list view. To customize how you view your disks and volumes in the upper and lower panes of the window, point to Top or Bottom on the View menu, and then click the view that you want to use.NOTE: Microsoft recommends that you create a full back up of your disk contents before you make any changes to your disks or volumes.
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Hello,
dear Bob Morris, I have tried to install Ubuntu 7.10 in my 8Gb USB to allow a dual boot but I was unable to enable the write options on USB….so ubuntu was fast but I could not update Ubuntu OS…
Dual Boot worked very well, but only if I had the USB connected… My goal was to boot on my USB in any computer, I must try again.
Nevertheless, I wanted to uninstall dual Boot XP-Ubuntu and your page has allowed it in only 2 minutes !!!
And, the most important thing, my windows XP (with everything inside from my work) keeps running very well without any data lost !!
Again, thank you for your web page !
Comment by Josep — February 17, 2008 @ 5:14 am
Wa-hoo! Glad I helped!
Comment by Bob Morris — February 17, 2008 @ 10:48 pm
I tried uninstalling ubuntu on my XP computer. I deleted the partitions with no problem, but after I rebooted I get the following messages during boot:
Grub loading stage 1.5
Grub loading please wait
Error 17
The startup hangs at this point. When I reboot this happens again (either with or without the Win XP boot disk).
Comment by john9210 — March 28, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
This might be because the grub loader from Ubuntu is still in the boot sector. Deleting the partitions won’t get rid of the grub loader.
Did you boot off a Windows XP CD and do fixmbr as mentioned above? That should fix the problem.
Comment by Bob Morris — March 28, 2008 @ 9:44 pm
I’m having the same Grub problem but don’t have a true WinXP install disc. The disc that came with my toshiba uses Symantic’s ghost program to put the windows image on. No repair options. Any suggestions?
Comment by Jeremy — April 11, 2008 @ 7:09 pm
Find a friend who has an XP install disk and boot off that, should work.
Comment by Bob Morris — April 12, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
Hi,
You had deleted the password, but may be you forget to change the computer’s startup, i.e. boot-up sequence. Change boot option first boot from CD & then boot from HDD.
When you delete the partition it just remove Ubuntu not bootloader. If the first boot device is HDD then boot-loader will try to use load. As Ubuntu is not there it will give that problem. Try to use boot from CD option and then use “FixMBr”
Comment by Raj Mishra — June 8, 2008 @ 9:34 pm
sorry in my above post instead of “Uninstalled Ubuntu” I had write “deleted the password”.
Please note that first line after hi read as “You had uninstalled Ubuntu, but”
Comment by Raj Mishra — June 8, 2008 @ 9:36 pm
how du u uninstalled Ubuntu
Comment by rass — June 30, 2008 @ 12:21 pm