Installed XP, then Vista, now want Ubuntu

Can't load Vista

NTFS is a proprietary, closed standard which Microsoft does not provide detailed specs for. As such, all of the existing 3rd-party support for NTFS is provided purely through reverse engineering. In other words, you can't install any operating system but Windows on NTFS.

Linux needs to be installed on a well-supported filesystem, and you actually have your choice of many great filesystems. For modern PCs, I prefer the XFS filesystem. For older ones, JFS is a great choice. Ext3 is tried and true, but quite slow compared to the two I've just mentioned. That said, any of them are more resilient than NTFS. Linux will also need a small swap partition, which uses a special 'swap' filesystem. Multiple Linux installations can share the same swap partition. Also, this can be quite small (512mb or so), since Linux only uses swap memory if it absolutely needs to.

 

Can't load Vista

i found a solution for that... How to: Dual-boot Windows Vista and Linux

 

ok im at the install stage for ubuntu, it states its ready to install, but one of the lines says...

"WARNING: This will destroy all data on any partitions you have removed as
well as on the partitions that are going to be formatted."

What does that mean? i have other data in other partitions, will it erase that data??

someone get back to me asap!

 

Ironic how your mood says "Relaxed". Anyway, it's saying that whatever changes you made will be made permanent. Just double-check your work to make sure you didn't accidentally delete a partition you want, and everything will be fine.

 

ok, nothing is booting, it will allow me to pick Vista to boot from the boot screen, but nothing loads, im using the live cd for ubuntu, and i see from the gnon partition manager all the files are still there including partitions

how do i unistall linux/how do i undo changes made to the boot process??

... there was no option for "Freakin' Out"!!!

 

ok, i took out my backup hd, and now it boots to Vista, i guess GRUB was installed in my backup HD (IDE) instead of my sata hd; i don't know if i want to try installing Ubuntu again......too scared:unsure:

 

Normally you install your boot manager, e.g. GRUB, on your MBR. This is typically on your primary disc.