COmputer Issues, need wipedrive pro

[phpforfun]

So, pretty much my desktop is messed up, badly. I got an "error 21" which means it wasnt able to see the boot file, I found a tutorial on how to fix it, but I just wanted to start over, I figured why not, everything I need is either on an external drive or on my server.

So I format it, put XP on one HDD, then Ubuntu8.04 on the other, I go to boot it up, it doesnt even see the second HDD with XP, and it gives me a TON of errors when I boot, something to do with network files.. My guess is its because some files werent removed as they should have been during the ubuntu install.

I had wipedrive pro 4, got it from when I worked for the city, and it worked great, however... a friend lost it!

SO does anyone know where I can get a good DOD wipe program? Wipe Drive pro did it like 7 times in one wipe, it was awesome, but its also $100, and im not down for paying that much

[Jordan]

What type of drive is it? Western Digital has tools that will do this for you that are free.

[phpforfun]

THey are 2 different HDD, Maxtor and I think the other one is WD.. What tool will do both at once? WIpe Drive Pro did up to like 4

EDIT: New symptoms, once errors finished (10 minutes), it takes me to the login screen, I login, then it takes me to the login screen... 5 logins later, it lets me login... weird

[Jordan]

You are saying that grub doesn't recognize Windows and you can't select it? That doesn't mean it doesn't see your HDD, just that it is not in your boot.lst file. Has your install CD been scratched or did you just download Ubuntu?

[phpforfun]

Im sure I just messed it up, I installed XP, then put ubuntu in (latest version, new cd, fresh downlad), and started to partition, picked a HDD, and it asked if I would like to import the other data (listed xp files), I took that as "oops, I guess this is the one I installed XP on", so I did it on the other HDD< and it didnt ask to import XP files, so I did it... and now it doesnt see xp, is there any way I installed ubuntu over xp? lol.

[morefood2001]

At first glance, I thought you installed Windows XP after Ubuntu, but you didn't.

Your problem is your hard drive order and partitioning. When an operating system is installed, the boot loader for that that OS is loaded on the main primary hard drive found on the system which is normally on the ide controller unless you don't use ide hard drives, in which case, it will immediately look at sata / raid controllers.

Its very possible that when you are installing ubuntu, ubuntu's partitioner is writing over the boot record for windows on the primary drive erasing vital windows startup files such as ntdlm (sp). My recommendation would be try a manual partition after xp is working for ubuntu and manually create a swap and / partition.

You can easily fix xp if you didn't write over it by going to the recovery console and entering fixmbr and fixboot.

As for a hard drive wipe software, I'm fairly sure that won't help you in this situation, although I'm sure there are several free versions available with the aid of google.

[phpforfun]

the only free one is wdclear, and I only found it in a .exe. which is weird...