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I'm using a 2 year old laptop with Windows Vista. I want to start over and only use Ubuntu. How can I wipe my entire hard disc clean, including the 2 partitions and start all over with one partition and then install Ubuntu? I want to have EVERYTHING removed from my hard disc, 100 percent blank slate. Can anyone please tell me how I should do this? Thanks very much! :-)

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Can you please clarify? Are you asking how to make all data completely gone and unrecoverable, or simply how to have only Ubuntu with no Windows? – zpletan Mar 13 '12 at 14:12

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Just put in the Ubuntu LiveCD, tell it to install Ubuntu, and let it automatically partition the whole disk. That should do it.

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You can use the Disk Utility for that. It's a graphical tool that will show you the current partitions on your hard drive. You can then click on each partition and select Delete Partition.
The Disk Utility is available when you run the Ubuntu from the Live CD. After deleting all partitions you can install Ubuntu and it will create the necessary partitions for you.

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thanks. In old versions of windows it was possible to do format c, is that still possible in Vista and windows 7? – Peter Mar 13 '12 at 12:07
@Peter as far as I know the 'diskpart' took over the format command. However, format does not delete partitions. It formats them. – yossile Mar 13 '12 at 12:32
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There exists a liveCD called Darik's Boot and Nuke that will help you with that: http://www.dban.org/

Basically, you download the iso, burn it on a CD, then boot on said CD. All partitions (INCLUDING connected external hard drives of USB thumb drives or anything, so be careful) will be erased. The process will take a few hours and your hard drive will be blank.

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thanks...that's quick haha. – Peter Mar 13 '12 at 12:05
Well the point is to securely erase all data, instead of simply creating a new partition table that would leave the data on the disk, although much more difficult to access. – lmontrieux Mar 13 '12 at 12:07

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