Help with installation

[Colin Law]

2009/10/2 Karl F. Larsen <klarsen1 at gmail.com>:
> Michael White wrote:
>> Thanks for the reply, however I am not looking to back up anything. I just want a clean wipe of everything that is on the HDD. I can't afford another HDD right now so this one will have to do. I want to fully erase everything that has to do with Windows and all file data back to the original drive so that I can then load Ubuntu on it. I don't care what gets deleted (except whatever I need to allow me to start from scratch).
>>
>> --- On Fri, 10/2/09, dean <deanubuntu at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> From: dean <deanubuntu at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: Help with installation
>> To: "Ubuntu user technical support, not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
>> Date: Friday, October 2, 2009, 6:25 AM
>>
>>
>> Michael White wrote:
>>> Hi, I have been thinking about making a switch from Windows to Linux
>>> for awhile now. Yesterday my desktop caught a really bad case of
>>> spyware. Now all I want to do is format my hard drive and load Ubuntu
>>> onto the desktop. I was wondering if you guys would be able to assit
>>> me in how to do so. I was running Windows XP SP3. Any help would be
>>> appreciated.
>
>        Your hard drive may have more than one partition. But if it
> had just windows then it took the entire first partition.
> Since you do not want to save anything from windows, put your
> LiveCD inthe cd device and when it comes up after some simple
> questions it will ask if you want to install  linux on the
> entire hard drive. Say yes and follow the instructions.
>
>        Today it is hard to get any updates. So wait till Sunday to
> try for them.

Karl is spot on here(!), no need to worry about formatting the drive,
just boot off the Ubuntu CD and tell it you want to use the whole
disk.  It will format it for you I think.

Colin