Delete Crashed Ubuntu From HP - 15 - Laptop

tpick

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How does one remove a completely scrambled Ubuntu 14-04 from my hp laptop, and do a clean new install?
Thanks in advance,
Tpick (Tom Pickle).
 


G'day Tom, and Welcome to Linux.org

Just install straight over the top . The install process will completely clean away the old ubuntu.
 
G'day Tom, from another Aussie :) and welcome to linux.org, also.

Just a note to what Brian has said above -

Are you looking to install Ubuntu again, or another Linux Distro, if so which?

Reason I ask is that 'Trusty Tahr' (14.04) reaches EOL (end of life) next month, that is, after 5 years. Following the end of support for it, you won't receive updates for it, and internet use will pose a small risk.

So if going the 'buntu highway again, better is to install 18.04 'Bionic Beaver'.

Cheers

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
I saw your message and Wizard's message back to you about this thread in the Status section. So I thought I'd help you get back on track.

In that message, you asked how to you move the entire contents of one drive to another drive. I suggest that you don't do the "entire" contents and pick and choose what you really need and want. Since this is about a "scrambled eggs" Ubuntu, I'm going to guess that we're talking about your hard drive with Ubuntu on it. You don't need everything from that drive on the new one, only what's in /home/yourname. So I'd suggest only copying that. Above you say you have a laptop, so there's 1 of 2 ways your going to get data from one drive to another. If your laptop has 2 bays for hard drives, insert both. If you only have 1 hard drive bay, you're going to have to purchase something that will allow you to plug the other one into a USB port. I bought this for the same purpose https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BIE996S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1.

Then you have to boot to an OS that will work, I suggest booting to your new Ubuntu 18.10 installation media. Since you ask how to mount it, I'm assuming you don't know how to boot up to the installation media. Power off your laptop. In the status message you said you can't get it to reboot, so just press and hold the power button till it powers off, then turn it on again. Very shortly after turning it on you should see an HP on the screen and at the bottom some instructions to boot with different options, 1 will be for setup or bios and the other should be for boot options. On my Dell, the boot options are F12, while the HP screen is up, press F12, if that's what HP uses and do it before it goes to the next screen. If you did it correctly you should get a menu. It should have hard drive, maybe CD Rom, USB Device (names may be slightly different). Select the one where your Ubuntu is plugged into and then enter. This will boot up the installation media, a clean version of Ubuntu. Install Ubuntu to your new hard drive by clicking the Install To Harddrive icon.

After you get Ubuntu installed and booted up, you can copy the data from the old hard drive to the new one by plugging in the drive, opening to Gnome File managers and drag and drop from old to new.

Let me know if you have any additional questions. Keep them in this thread :)
 
Sorry to take so long in responding.

I can't get rid of the Ubuntu version(s) that have my afore mentioned HP laptop screwed up.

Should I buy another HDD and try again??

Tom
 
What do you mean by you can't get rid o fit? You can format any drive and get rid of any data on any drive. Unless the drive is dead, too small, or in some other way defective, you don't need to buy a new drive. If you don't need to retain any data from the "scrambled eggs" drive, then I suggest you delete all partitions and recreate. When you do your installation of Linux, most distros default to them taking the entire drive and rewriting the entire contents. Are you saying that when you get to that point in the installation, that it isn't erasing anything and you have the exact same installation afterwards?
 
Okay, to be more specific, I have been unable to read the cd/dvd drive in my laptop. I tried to reset the bios boot order but I must be doing something wrong; still unable to access said drive. Back to the drawing board.
Thanks,
tpick
 
If you can't boot to the CD Rom, then buying a new hard won't help. It's possible you have a bad CD Rom. If you have a pen drive, you can load the live ISO on it instead. YOu only need a small 4 gig one, should be able to buy that for $5 - $10.
 

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