[HelloJulia]

I started up a really old laptop that had Ubuntu (version 3.5, I believe) and it's got a ton of stuff on it that needs to go. I can't boot up Windows XP (which is installed, but as stated, doesn't work) normally, I can boot up Ubuntu but it's ridiculously slow. Can I completely format my laptop from the grub> command screen? I mean delete everything, including the current Ubuntu and Windows XP versions installed, so I can put a newer Linux version in.

Pre-thank you for help!

[Nexius]

You could use a USB and do a live boot and then install the OS onto the computer.
there will still be byts of memory on the hard drive but it shouldn't effect your computer performance.