[Bruno738]

My friend has a Toshiba Satellite A30 laptop with 480mb ram and 46gb hard drive.
He wants to install Ubuntu in place of XP. He tried to format his C drive but the machine won't let him It has XP pre-installed and only has restore discs. Is there any reason why it will not allow him to do this. He installed Ubuntu to run as a dual boot but although it appeared to go well it sticks and never completes its opening, which is why he thought he would take XP off.

[etaf]

does ubuntu run from CD as a virtual operating system OK
how is he formatting the C drive ?

I will move to the linux OS Forum

[saikee]

If you run a MS Windows and ask it to format itself it is like giving a gun to a person and tell him to shoot himself dead.

To get that person killed you give the gun to a third person to act as the assassin. In operating system term this is equivalent to using a second operating system to nuke the first operating system.

The Xp partition can be nuked by Ubuntu in 3 seconds flat.

Say it is in partition sda1 the commands to nuke it in a Ubuntu terminal can be

sudo fdisk /dev/sda << eof
d
1
w
q
eof

Be very sure if you want to delete a partition. The above is just using program "fdisk" to partition hard disk device /dev/sda. "d" is for delete, "1" is to nuke the first partition sda1, "w" is to write the new partition table (confirmation) and "q" is to exit fdisk.

A good operating system is designed to protect you with security and safety in working with the computer. You think it would be stupid enough to format itself?

[Bruno738]

Thanks for your reply. I will pass it on to him and get back to you with the result.

[Bruno738]

I suggested he tries running direct from the disc when I saw him yesterday but I have not heard yet if he had any luck. He tried to format his hard drive by going into Computer/C drive/Properties and/format.

[saikee]

Just image you are a reputable operating system that guarantees precision in reading from and writing to a hard disk with out getting one byte wrong and answerable in everything you do to your master the user. If one day he turns up and asks you to drop dead. You have to do it and then report back that you are dead. Let's say you are willing to do what you are told but run into unexpected errors how do you report back?

Well if an operating system formats itself in a hard disk it cannot report the result back, can it?

No reputable operating system in running mode will allow a self destruction.

You can nuke a MS Windows by booting up its installation CD/DVD. The installer, being a third party acting as the assassin, can be instructed to remove any partition in a hard disk and then reports back to you the result.

[Bruno738]

I understand what you are saying. His trouble is he does not have a diskwith the O/S on. Would a disk from my old computer give him access to do that?

[Chapmage]

You can download the LiveCD of Ubuntu 10.04, when you boot up off of it, it will ask if you want to "Try it out", or "Install Now". If he tries it out, he can then install it from the desktop of the Live session, or if he chooses to install now, around step 3 is the partitioning stage, where he should be able to select the "Use the entire disk" option, and Ubuntu will remove the XP partition at that point.

[prunejuice]

Originally Posted by Bruno738

My friend has a Toshiba Satellite A30 laptop...

I spent three months trying to get Ubuntu to run on my Satellite A30. Zero.

The closest *nix I was able to run with that laptop was PCLinuxOS...barely.

I eventually sold it and bought a netbook with the money.



Toshiba + Linux = hostility
Even mentioning Linux on the Toshiba Forums and they treat you like you have leprosy.