How to Uninstall ubuntu: step by step guide

This page describes how to properly remove Ubuntu, retaining access to your other operating systems if necessary.

This page is not intended to assist you step by step in installing a new operating system. It only informs you of the procedures to follow to get rid of Ubuntu (what you must do to make all traces of Ubuntu disappear from your computer) and tells you what information to collect from the technical support service for your new system. operating system to complete the installation or recovery of another operating system. For any further assistance, we recommend that you check with the technical support department for your new operating system to obtain all the necessary information. If necessary, search the Internet and seek help from communities of users of your new operating system.

But above all, do not get involved in this operation if you do not master all aspects of it. It is better to keep a system that you no longer want, than to make your computer unusable.

Below, we present four typical cases in which you may find yourself:

1. You have installed Ubuntu as the only operating system in your computer and you want to replace it with another operating system ;
2. You have installed Ubuntu (in its own partitions) in multi-boot with one or more other operating systems and you want to get rid of Ubuntu only ;
3. You want to make your hard drive completely blank, in order to start over on a new basis ;
4. You installed Ubuntu using Wubi and you want to uninstall Ubuntu only.

First case – Installing a new operating system

This scenario applies to you if:

• Ubuntu is installed alone on your computer
• you want to install another operating system that completely replaces Ubuntu (that is, say that you don’t want to create a multi-boot of two OS in your computer)

This is the simplest case, because everything will be taken care of by the installer of your new operating system.

Procedure

1. Follow the procedure indicated by the installation guide for your new operating system.
2. At the partitioning step, delete all partitions from Ubuntu. You may find turnkey solutions such as “Use Entire Disk”. Refer to the installation manual for your new operating system.
3. Complete the installation by following the instructions given by your operating system installer.

At the end of these steps, your new operating system should have completely replaced Ubuntu on your computer. There should be no trace of Ubuntu left. If this is not the case, or if you have any problem during the installation procedure of your new operating system, we recommend that you contact the technical support department for your new operating system in order to obtain all the necessary information concerning the procedure for installing and replacing an operating system installed in your computer. If applicable (usually free operating systems), search the Internet and seek help from communities of users of your new operating system.

Other methods

Restoring a Windows MBR

This scenario applies to you if:

• Ubuntu is installed on your computer in cohabitation (dual-boot) with Windows.
• you want to get rid of Ubuntu while keeping Windows.

Follow the tutorial: Reinstall a Windows compatible MBR to uninstall the Ubuntu access menu.

At this point, your computer should boot directly to Windows, but the Ubuntu partition is still not released. To free this space, see the paragraph below.

Formatting the Ubuntu partition

To succeed in this procedure, you will need a LiveCD with gParted, such as an Ubuntu live-CD. This procedure will help you to:

• remove partitions from Ubuntu. Incidentally, you can immediately reallocate the freed space to other partitions;
• remove GRUB from the bootstrapmaster boot record(MBR) of your main hard disk and install a regular.

1. Restart your computer so that it starts (“Try without installing”) on the Live-CD.
2. Go to the menu System → Administration → gParted, you will see an interface similar to the image above;
3. Locate your Ubuntu partitions. They will be informat ext4 and linux-swap (red).
4. For each of the Ubuntu partitions and only those of Ubuntu, right-click on it and command Delete (make sure to stop the swap before if there is any because otherwise, it will refuse to delete! !!);
5. (Optional) When you have finished deleting Ubuntu partitions, you can expand your other partitions to allocate this freed space to existing partitions, or create a new partition in the freed space to use in your other operating systems;
6. Press the button Apply to apply the changes.If

you have not reallocated the space freed by Ubuntu to an already existing partition (s), you may need to use other partitioning tools, whether or not included in your other system. ‘exploitation. In this case, we recommend that you check with the technical support department for your next operating system in order to obtain all the necessary information regarding the use of the partitioning tools included with that operating system. If applicable (usually free operating systems), search the Internet and seek help from communities of users of your new operating system.

Third case – Make your hard drive blank

This scenario applies to you if:

• Ubuntu is installed in your computer in parallel or not with other operating systems
• you want to erase the entire contents of your hard drive for the make blank

This can be useful, for example, if you want to resell your hard drive: you want no personal data to remain. At the end of this procedure, your hard drive will be completely empty: no operating system will be installed on it and no personal data will remain.

Procedure

1. Start your computer with a live session Desktop CD of the Ubuntuor one of its variants.
2. In a terminal, enter the following command to disable the expansion of RAM in your hard disks. (If you don’t run this command, there may be some information left on your hard drive.)
   ~ $ Sudo swapoff -a
3. Run the following command. It will force a zero copy on all sectors of your hard drive. You must know the identifier of your hard disk to erase (the status = progress option gives the progress of the cleaning).
   ~ $ sudo dd if = / dev / zero of = / dev / sda status = progress

This procedure takes quite a long time (depending on the size of the hard disk). Above all, do not cut the pc during cleaning.

In the end, there should be nothing left in your hard drive. To test, you can use the software GParted present in the Desktop CD Ubuntuto see if there are still partitions. You can also try to boot your computer normally on this hard drive: the procedure should end with an error.

Fourth case – Uninstall Ubuntu installed using Wubi

This scenario applies to you if:

• you have installed Ubuntu in Microsoft® Windows® using the installer Wubi
• and if you want to remove Ubuntu while keeping your current Windows installation intact.

This can be useful, for example, if you want to get rid of Ubuntu completely because your experience with it has not been successful. Or on the contrary, you want to uninstall Ubuntu installed by Wubi to reinstall it in its own physical partitions, independent of those of Windows.

Procedure

1. Open the Control Panel (Start menu → Control Panel);
2. Open the utility for uninstalling programs: For
   • Windows 2000 / XP: this is the tool Add / Remove Programs ;
   • Under Windows Vista / 7: it is thetool Programs→ Uninstall a program ;
3. In the list of installed programs, locate Ubuntu ;
4. Right-click on this entry and select the uninstall option;
5. Follow the instructions on the screen.

After completing these steps, there are no traces of Ubuntu left in your Windows partitions, and the boot menu entries have been removed. If the Ubuntu entries have not been removed from the boot menu, use the software EasyBCD to modify this menu. If you have XP and you still cannot remove this menu, you must modify the BOOT.INI file by removing the line beginning with “Ubuntu =”. To modify this file, use the following procedure: Right click on My Computer / Properties / Advanced / Startup and recovery / Settings / System start / Modify.

If you installed Wubi on a drive other than C and it refuses to uninstall, download the uninstaller Uninstall-Ubuntu.exe and run it.