[ubuntu-uk] Reclaiming Ubuntu partition

[Rob Beard]

On 22/04/10 11:30, Alan Pope wrote:
> Hi Keith,
>
> On 22 April 2010 11:21, Keith<keith at grumpyface.me.uk>  wrote:
>> Perhaps someone could help me my explaining how I can recover the Ubuntu
>> partition for Windows to use.
>>

<snip>

> If you installed Ubuntu in a separate partition, boot from the live
> CD. Run gparted. Highlight the ubuntu partition(s) (there will likely
> be two, one root, one swap), delete them. Highlight the windows
> partition and resize it up to take the space. Click apply, leave it
> running. Job done.

Only issue I can see is Grub, you may find doing this you might have to 
boot off a Windows XP CD, choose the Recovery Console option and run 
fixmbr (or it might be fixboot, I get them mixed up).  It will then 
over-write Grub and you should be able to boot in to Windows by default.

> Note there is some risk to this, so having a backup is a good thing.
>

I agree, depending how you want to take a backup, I'd suggest either 
backing up the documents from XP (this can be done by booting into 
Ubuntu and copying the Documents and Settings folder and everything in 
it to something like a USB stick, it won't let you do it in Windows as 
some files will be locked).  That will copy all the existing profile 
settings such as Firefox, IE etc settings over.

Or you could use CloneZilla and do a complete clone of the drive 
(CloneZilla is about a 150MB ISO).  Doing a complete drive clone will 
copy everything (Ubuntu, XP etc) which can be restored if anything goes 
wrong.

Last resort, if you have a specific manufacturers Windows CD* (if it's a 
branded machine) or restore disk handy then you could use that to 
restore or reinstall Windows.

* I say specific manufacturers Windows CD as the big manufacturers 
(Dell, IBM, Acer, HP, Sony etc) have signatures in the BIOS which allows 
Windows to activate.  They use a common CD key specific to the make of 
the machine and version of Windows.  It's more common that manufacturers 
supply restore discs which restore the OS, drivers and all the junkware 
they bundle in.  Dell for one usually provide a Windows installation CD 
specific to Dell machines but it will install a clean copy of Windows 
(no junkware or drivers).  Generally the license key stuck to the bottom 
of the machine won't work (although you might be able to get away with 
phoning Microsoft to get it to activate).

Rob