Correct way of installing Linux!!!

[himadri_sm]

I have an 80gb hdd.it has 2 partitions- a 15gb with xp pro sp2 installed & a 31gb with data partition.In the remaining free space i installed open suse 11.0 & then decided to install ubuntu.So i used the ubuntu installation disk & in the partition setup used the already existing suse partitions(/, /home & swap)then formatted them again & completed the installation.everything went fine but when the system finally restarted there was an error- GRUB loading Error 15..& it just didn't boot..i used my ubuntu live cd & from there i used the gparted utility & delete the 3 linux partitions..restarted the system & there was another error- GRUB loading Error 22..by now i was pretty much frustrated..so i booted off my xp cd & using the windows recovery console i used the FIXMBR command to finally correct the boot record..this time the system finally booted into windows xp..& the deleted partitions were present in disk management console as free space..now my question is where did i go wrong? is there any way by which i could have removed opensuse completely & then installed ubuntu? please tell me the correct procedure for installing a distro over another already existing one?
Thank you..

[NucleusKore]

Open the Disk Management System and see whether you have basic or dynamic disks. If you have dynamic disks I do not know how you can write GRUB to the MBR.

[himadri_sm]

Originally Posted by NucleusKore

Open the Disk Management System and see whether you have basic or dynamic disks. If you have dynamic disks I do not know how you can write GRUB to the MBR.

in disk management my partitions show up as basic.
what exactly went wrong? i thought ubuntu would overwite opensuse. that didn't happen.how could i have removed open suse & GRUB completely so the boot settings were reverted to previous state when only windows xp was there?
BTW, thanx for your awesome tutorial on creating a dual boot system with windows & linux.

[Hitboxx]

You should have posted when you got the first GRUB error. Now when all is done and gone, how can one say proper what went wrong.

And here is the list of all the GRUB errors http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/grub-error-guide.xml