Updated to 24.04.2 frome 20.? Problems

Support and Help
1

I updated an old machine from ubuntu 20.? to 24.04.2 and there are problems. I tried to update and it failed a couple of times. My thought is to simply clean off the machine of everything and just install 24.04.2

Given that the old machine held nothing of value this might be the way to go. So, to make sure. What is the best way to clean the machine of EVERYTHING?

Thoughts?

2

If you start the installer it will offer you to erase whatever there is in the disk and do a “clean install”, if you only want to have this new installation in your computer.

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3

To completely erase EVERYTHING on a machine, here’s how I do it:

  1. Boot the live Ubuntu environment and select “Try Ubuntu”
  2. Open GParted
  3. Select the disk you want to clean
  4. Device > “Create Partition Table…”, select “gpt”, then click OK. Careful: This step will delete ALL partitions on the selected disk.
  5. Still in GParted, create the partitions in the layout you want for your Ubuntu reinstallation, but format every newly-created partition as “cleared”.

When choosing the partition layout: If your machine is legacy BIOS, your first partition on your OS drive will need to be a 1-2 MB partition that will become the bios_grub partition. If your machine is UEFI, your first partition on your OS drive will need to become the EFI partition, for which the current recommendation for size seems to be about 1.1 GB.

When reinstalling Ubuntu, choose the option to manually select which partitions to use, point the installer to your cleared partitions and let the installer take care of formatting the cleared partitions in the actual desired way.

4

Thanks for the reply…

Here is what I have in that machine. I have a 1tb ssd where, I think, everything is and something called a drive generic multitask card. I checked disk for that. The generic multitask card, according to the disks program was not even installed so I was running completely with the 1tb ssd disk.

My thought is to put that drive into Disks program and re-format the thing and then put a new copy of 24.04.2 on it and see what happens. Hopefully that should do it. At the same time I could put another one into the machine and I would have a 2tb machine which, I suspect, is pretty much what I need. I am actually tempted to goto ebay and get a 4tb ssd card - they are selling them for about 85.00.

Oh, when the machine first starts out there is a thing that comes up that says that the eufi thing is not available. have no idea what that might mean but it runs pretty good.

Thoughts?

5

If UEFI is not available (check all options in the BIOS) then your computer is likely from priort to 2012 since that is when most computers started using UEFI. Either the method described above by halogen2 or the Erase Disk and install should work. Make sure you get the right disk!

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6

It is not more difficult than what garcia said. Start the installer and have it use the entire drive.

7

Thank you for the reply…
I screwed up my system and currently trying to use a new creator stick…