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Since most computer problems are resolved either by random or ritualistic action on the part of the user, or by following mysterious instructions from an allegedly knowledgeable support person, it’s hardly surprising that there are lots of pseudo-religious myths about PCs. Between them, these stories can waste a lot of your time and money. Worse yet, you could become one of the myths’ promulgators, and exacerbate the problem!

This article is partly about the worst of these myths, but it’s also about how to spot misconceived ideas yourself, and where to find the straight dope about your computer.

1: Everything’s a virus!

By far the most common PC myths concern viruses. Novice computer users are renowned for assuming that anything that goes wrong with their PC must be caused by a virus, and misguided virus warnings are one of the most popular kinds of non-commercial junk e-mail. Many of these warnings clearly originated as a joke (e-mails titled “Pen Pal Greetings!” that warn you never to open an e-mail titled “Pen Pal Greetings!”, for instance…), but many computer users don’t know what their computer can and can’t do and so forward the “warnings” promiscuously.
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My dual boot Ubuntu installation on Windows XP got hopelessly trashed. Endless command line errors upon booting. After much searching, I found an easy way to uninstall it using Windows only.

It took me about three minutes and it worked flawlessly. Hope this helps someone else. (And now I can reinstall Ubuntu!)

Quick instructions: (detailed instruction follow)

A.) Use Disk Manager in Windows to delete the Ubuntu partitions.

B.) Boot off your Windows XP CD.
Choose “Repair”
When it asks for the installation number, I put in “1″, and it worked fine (you may want to test this first to be sure.)
Enter Admin password.
At the command prompt type “fixmbr”, then confirm. Windows will overwrite the dual boot info in the MBR that Ubuntu put there.
Reboot!

Full details:

Uninstall Ubuntu using Windows

Suppose you are running Windows. If so, follow these steps:
1) In Windows, launch Disk manager and remove every partition used by Ubuntu (root partition, swap, …)
2) Reboot with your Windows CD. When asked, choose “repair” and launch fixmbr. This command replaces GRUB with Windows bootloader.
3) Reboot again and you have done.

Once you are done, it you want to recover the space for Windows that was once used by Ubuntu. You can use the steps outlined above (going the the Disk Manager, etc). To create a new NTFS partition and assign it as something like the D: drive (or some other letter) to be used for data and so forth.

How to use Disk Manager

To start Disk Management:
1. Log on as administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.
2. Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK.
3. In the console tree, click Disk Management. The Disk Management window appears. Your disks and volumes appear in a graphical view and list view. To customize how you view your disks and volumes in the upper and lower panes of the window, point to Top or Bottom on the View menu, and then click the view that you want to use.

NOTE: Microsoft recommends that you create a full back up of your disk contents before you make any changes to your disks or volumes.