I followed an online tutorial! All I had to do was replace Windows 8 with Ubuntu and the tutorial clearly said that you choose 'Replace OS with Ubuntu' during installation. That option was not available but the installation had one "use entire disk and install Ubuntu, this will delete your files and programs in all your operating systems"   Windows is the only Operating System and Ubuntu has wiped my whole disk now on Ubuntu, the command mount on terminal gives me this  NAME   FSTYPE   SIZE MOUNTPOINT LABEL sda           298.1G             ├─sda1 ext4   294.2G /           ├─sda2            1K             └─sda5 swap     3.9G [SWAP]      sr0            1024M        It only shows one 298 GB partition. I had very very important data on my partitions. Ebooks,Important Pictures I had collected through out the years (I am a self learned programmer). Yes, I know I Should have created a back up but I did not. My system is a laptop. How can I retrieve my Lost data from this partition?
285
I have a Toshiba satellite A-200 laptop with a Vista OS on it with 4 NTFS partitions  (C:) Vista  (D:) Entertainment  (E:) Work  (F:) Sources   and I wanted to start using Ubuntu instead. So I tried it first from the live CD and everything was OK and all the partitions were shown and working and so I decided to install Ubuntu to replace Vista on the (C:) drive. After I did that I can no longer find my folders and files on the (D:), (E:), (F:) partitions and the only file system that is shown is one 198 GB although my HDD is 320 GB.  I can't access the lost data on the remaining 120 GB which I hope is still there and not totally lost  I am now working from the live CD but I am unable to install testdisk. Can I recover the Vista partitions by the product recovery CD to get my laptop back to the factory settings? Can I recover the NTFS partitions using a recovery program for Windows or will that make the problem worse?   I need these data badly as I don't have a backup for them.
118055
I dual booted ubuntu 12.04 LTS with Windows 8, but I wanted to get rid of ubuntu. So I got EasyBCD (on windows 8) and removed Ubuntu following a tutorial on youtube, then I got rid of the Ubuntu partitions. After restarting my Sony Vaio, it went to grub rescue and I'm not sure what to do. Help please! Much appreciated!!  I installed ubuntu using a USB.
111040
I wonder if someone can help me? I am fairly new to trying to actually understand and use computers myself rather than just buying whatever Windows/Mac wants me to! You will get a giggle from my flawed attempts anyway :-)  I would like to start using Ubuntu on my PC, just got a new harddrive and did have a borrowed windows 7 disk as was planning to temporarily install it so i could get ubuntu. However I didn't have high enough spec hardware for win 7 (I think it is due to only 1gb ram, i do have 64 bit technology and a 1tb harddrive). I am quite happy to install 32 bit ubuntu and hear it is easier the use than 64 anyway.  So I have one other rubbish mini laptop (windows xp) which i am trying to use to get ubuntu onto a usb (laptop has no cd drive) so i can install it on the pc. First tried just downloading ubuntu 13.04 desktop onto a usb and trying to boot the pc from it which gave the message 'no operating system'. Then I tried this to create a bootable usb which sounded promising:  . However then it starting asking for my saucy desktop iso in order to install it onto the usb stick, can't really manage to find out what a saucy desktopp iso is, maybe a mirror image of an operating system, no idea why i would need that.  So in short, I'm lost. All I can think of is getting windows xp somewhere so i can get my pc to work and install ubuntu from the internet on that, or going to a friends house in the hope that creating a bootable cd is easier than creating a usb.  Sorry for my general ineptness and hope someone can help!
80218
I have a problem: today at work I was told that tomorrow afternoon I have to give my pc back and take a new one just arrived. It could be a good new, but I'm a developer and I use a lot of different software to work (Visual Studio, Delphi, Eclipse, Android, Apache, MySql, etc...) and I can't think about starting to reinstall and configure everything... usually it means one week lost... and some data usually get lost too with those migrations... So, is there any way I can use my current disk as system disk on new pc? I'm afraid because motherboard and cpu are completely different...  Is there something I could do to prepare "migration"? Any kind of Sysprep command so when Windows Seven boots start recognizing new devices without getting lost with previous ones?  UPDATE: Perhaps I've just found a suitable solution here:
39689
I have 2 partitions (Windows and Ubuntu 13.04) and I am asked which one to boot each time I turn on my computer.  I want to install Ubuntu 13.10 to the entire disk.  I do not mind if all previous Ubuntu/Win data are lost.  How can I do that?
3343
I need my pre-installed version of Windows 7 (or any other version of Windows), how could I install Ubuntu without erasing it?
50443
Hello can someone give me short tutorial how to:   Remove Windows 7 from my dual boot system (Ubuntu/Windows7) Let me use free space as new partition for data (so I don't need to extend Ubuntu itself here) Remove windows 7 option from boot screen   Update:  Thanks to Lekensteyn answer I successfully deleted windows. Now I created new partition (formatted to ext4), but I can not use it. I cannot copy files there, only as root.  Also when booting, Ubuntu complains it didn't find /windows partition (of course it didn't, I removed it). I feel like I should update some tables or what, any ideas?
103891
A virus has corrupted my desktop's hard drive. How can I remove the remnants of Windows and install Ubuntu on it?  I have only a working mobile phone and one 4GB USB drive. The 4GB drive has vacation photos on it. I have no friends to borrow things from. What to do? Step by step please, any terminal commands should be familiar to a Ubuntu user.  This question is loosely based on  which was deemed off topic by the DPP.
40454
I want to use the "reset my PC" feature of Windows 10 to wipe the data on my Windows partition. But I have also a Linux system installed, which I want to keep.  Will Windows 10's full reset wipe all my disk, or just Windows's partitions ?
68093
I'm new to how Ubuntu works and installed it yesterday alongside Windows 7, but in doing so I have created a few problems. I have partitions for Windows, Ubuntu, System Recovery, and storage for all my files with the intention to access them on either OS, but I don't even see all of my drives listed on Home Folder. Not to mention that  during the Ubuntu instillation I managed to screw up any chance of booting to the Windows side of things at all. I'll fix Windows once I get my hands on a copy in a couple days, but in the mean time any suggestions for accessing my files?  If you need me to find any data about my computer to help you figure out what's wrong with it, please don't hesitate to tell me what I need to show you. Thanks
1629
I am a newbie in linux. I wanted to install ubuntu to my desktop. I currently have two partitions, Windows 8 in installed on one, and i have some important files in another partition. While installing ubuntu, if I chose "Replace Windows 8 with Ubuntu", do I lose the other partition too?   And are there other ways to leave the other partition as it is, and install ubuntu in the partition  where windows was installed.
80385
I am just about to install Ubuntu alongside Windows, just need to make sure I know how to remove it later.  I know from past the major problem was when I removed Ubuntu, I either still got into the GRUB booting menu, or I couldn't boot at all, and had to format HDD and start over. Now I found an article practically saying the Windows loader should be back upon deleting Linux partition, so I want to make sure:  If I have Windows and Ubuntu dualboot, and I want to get back to Windows booting quickly itself without choosing from any booting menu, is it enough to just delete the Ubuntu partition? Will the Windows loader override GRUB?  Thanks!
63467
I had installed Ubuntu to my Dell Inspiron laptop with 3 partitions.   After I installed Windows I was unable to create new partitions, since I already reached the maximum number of partitions.  So I deleted the Ubuntu partitions and I installed Windows on two partitions. So I have got 4 partitions with Windows.  Then I tried to install the Ubuntu that previously deleted(on unallocated space). But the problem is that unallocated partitions are grayed out and can't be used.  Now what can I do?
5305
Is it really safe to choose the "Install Ubuntu alongside Windows" option from the Ubuntu installation program?  I never used that option, instead I used other tools such as partition magic or windows 7's disk tool to resize my partitions.  Since I'm going to install Ubuntu across a lot windows (XP, Vista and 7) machines. It would not be nice to damage those Windows partitions.  What is your experience? Can I use this feature without concerns?
100687
So i want to install Ubuntu and im booting from USB. Im new to Ubuntu.  When i click SOMETHING ELSE, it shows 4 partions: the first of 1mb, sda1, unknown free space, second of 100mb sda2 (that i know its system recovery from win7), third is 170gb (win7) sda3, and the last one is like 830gb, i dont know where this came from.... on windows i have them separated.  is this a bug or something? How to install without losing all my data and keeping Win7?  When i try without installing i get to see my 3 partions (170gb, 600gb, 230gb) but not when i try to install.  Edit  ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda   outputs this:  GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.7   Partition table scan:   MBR: MBR only   BSD: not present   APM: not present   GPT: not present   *************************************************************** Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format in memory.  ***************************************************************  Disk /dev/sda: 1953525168 sectors, 931.5 GiB Logical sector size: 512 bytes Disk identifier (GUID): 2729AEE7-A594-4A07-91DF-96116B581067 Partition table holds up to 128 entries First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953525134 Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries Total free space is 2044 sectors (1022.0 KiB)  Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name    1              63            2047   992.5 KiB   4200  Windows LDM data    2            2048          206847   100.0 MiB   4200  Windows LDM data    3          206848       245762047   117.1 GiB   4200  Windows LDM data    4       245762048      1953523119   814.3 GiB   4200  Windows LDM data   And,  ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l   outputs this:  Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x13344b63     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System /dev/sda1              63        2047         992+  42  SFS Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary. /dev/sda2   *        2048      206847      102400   42  SFS /dev/sda3          206848   245762047   122777600   42  SFS /dev/sda4       245762048  1953523119   853880536   42  SFS
98252
When re-installing Ubuntu on a partition where an existing Ubuntu installation already exists, and not choosing to format the partition, the installer shows a warning message before it begins installing:  The file system on /dev/sda5 assigned to / has not been marked for formatting. Directories containing system files (/etc, /lib, /usr, /var, ...) that already exist under any defined mountpoint will be deleted during the install. Please ensure that you have backed up any critical data before installing.  The list of &quot;system directories&quot; here does not seem complete. Furthermore, I would expect /home to be a system directory, but from experience I know that /home is not erased. What is the complete list of directories that will be removed during install?
113445
I know that a fresh Ubuntu install can wipe Windows files completely.   But I've heard that Windows writes random hidden data everywhere without your permission. Can there be remains of Windows after a clean install of Ubuntu that can be potentially used by malicious software against your data or passwords?  I had a nasty malware attack recently and left Windows for good, but the software service installed Windows again. So will a fresh Ubuntu install by me over Windows wipe it for good?