I have an older laptop that I want to install Ubuntu on. I've burned the iso to a DVD and tried to boot from this, but it always ask for a passcode to unencrypt the hard drive (I encrypted the whole drive when I installed Ubuntu on it a long time ago), and then it gives the following error and freezes: drm_kms_helper panic.

Is there any way I can just completely wipe the hard drive and start over with a new version of Ubuntu?

1 Answer

The simplest way to wipe the hard disk in your situation is probably to remove it from the machine, connect it to another (you can get a test connector for about $15 that will connect any IDE or SATA drive to a USB port), and use a partition editor there to create a new partition table, followed by building new partitions etc.

If you could get the laptop to boot to the DVD, you should be able to do that from the Live CD without removing the hard disk -- I suspect there's a problem with your burned DVD. Try a USB key, or a previously known-good CD/DVD with another Linux Live OS on it.

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