I found an old SSD and decided to use it for Ubuntu on my desktop where I only had Windows 10. I installed it and everything worked fine (dual booting, that is). Turns out that the reason the SSD was lying around was because it was broken.   So I figured that I would just remove the SSD and proceed with only Windows 10 but when I remove the SSD, I can't boot at all. I get into some sort of grub rescue environment.  As they were on different hard drives, I don't understand how I could mess up the Windows 10 SSD mbr?  Any suggestions for how to get out of this?  tl;dr Ubuntu on one SSD, Windows 10 on one SSD. I want to physically remove the Ubuntu SSD and only run W10. How?
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I have absolutely no experience with Linux, and I desperately need to get my computer back up and running again with Windows.  How do I remove Ubuntu and reinstall Windows?    Editor's note: many of the answers are about removing Ubuntu from dual-boot but keeping Windows (which is a bit complicated), while other answers are about removing Ubuntu from single-boot (which is easy: basically just format the disk while installing Windows). The question as written is ambiguous between dual-boot or single-boot.
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I have 2 partitions (Windows and Ubuntu 13.04) and I am asked which one to boot each time I turn on my computer.  I want to install Ubuntu 13.10 to the entire disk.  I do not mind if all previous Ubuntu/Win data are lost.  How can I do that?
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Soooooo, I seem to have myself in a very particular situation. Let me start from the beginning, I set up dual boot with Windows 10, and Lubuntu. Everything went according to plan. I then decided that I wanted to remove dual-boot. I looked on several articles some saying to use bootrec.exe, to repair and remove it but then I realized "It doesn't use the windows boot manager... it uses grub." So with this knowledge I searched for guides on how to remove grub. I found a guide () I could not access my system drive, so I dual-booted into Lubuntu and used root to access the EFI folder and deleted the "ubuntu" folder and rebooted to a happy little message saying: Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key_ . I realize that all my data is still there. I realize that in deleting the "ubuntu" folder that I deleted critical files part of the loading of grub. I now need to somehow replace these files, and get back to Windows 10.  Sidenote: I don't have bootrec.exe as a command. I checked this before I deleted the grub files.  Thanks for the help, -r
72572
In theory, what I want to do is very simple, but I've done some google research and read some posts on this site and I'm still confused.   I want to keep win7 on my primary C:\ drive, and install Ubuntu (12.10) on a secondary drive (that I have yet to buy or install. I just want to be certain that I'm successful when I do this). If at all possible I'd also like it if when I start the computer I have the option to boot either Win7 or Ubuntu, like an account log in type thing where I just pick which drive I'm running with that day. And just to reiterate, I do not want to partition my C:\ drive or alter, change, or affect my Win7 system in any way.  The reason I'm still fairly uncertain about all of this, is that a lot of the guides I've read have been for earlier versions of Ubuntu. Also the vast majority of guides are about partitioning one drive to fit both OS'. I want two separate OS running from two separate drives that I can pick at boot. The guides I did find mentioned that there is some issue with the grub being installed on C:\ but the rest of the OS being installed on the other drive. Is this still the case? How do I avoid that?  Also, if it helps, I've been running 12.04lts on my laptop for a few months now in and out of class and I love it.  Finally, if you could please point me to a guide or write your answer in the form of a guide for a two year old that'd be awesome. I'm still an Ubuntu novice and I don't want to mess up my win7.
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I installed Ubuntu 16.04 LTS in my machine about 4 months ago. Some days ago I changed the partition system from MBR to GPT and the boot mechanism to UEFI. Without data loss or reinstall the existing OS. Now I consider to install Win10 beside my Ubuntu with SecureBoot if possible.  My questions is:   Can I change the boot of my existing Ubuntu to SecureBoot? (to I must not to switch of it in Windows, after its installation) (reinstall Ubuntu is not an option of course)  Maybe need to change the boot loader to shim? (or it is not such a simple task?) Can I install Win10 in my existing EFI partition? (there is another trouble to can fall in?)   If someone can point me to an existing step by step instructions for these, it would be helpfull. I sent 2-3 hours to find it but allways the first installed OS is Windows and Ubuntu is the second (with SecureBoot at installation). I guess it is a reliable order, but I want it oposite :-).  Regards, Imre
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With the new Windows 10 coming out soon as a free upgrade, I'd like to know if and how I can install the upgrade on a new HDD. I assume the files needed for Windows 10 are only for upgrading an installed copy of Windows 7 or 8 and not a standalone installer to use on an empty hard drive. Or is this assumption wrong?  I have some issues booting (an older non-working version appears in the list of OS's to choose from) and I'd like to replace my current SSD, which is too small, with a new larger capacity one, while keeping my other drives intact. The old SSD will then be removed.  If more information is needed, please let me know.
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First of all: this is not a duplicate of the all the " questions.  Problem:  When booting, the system will not boot unless the installer USB flash drive is present. If I boot without the USB drive, the screen goes black AFTER GRUB lists the different configurations available - so GRUB is on the correct disk, its what it does next that seems to be the problem.  With the USB drive inserted, its access light starts flashing while the system boots in a normal manner.  And yes: I have tried booting from the USB drive directly and then I get the "live" version, so I have not installed the OS on the flash drive by mistake :)   I have tried sudo grub-install /dev/sda and sudo update-grub just for fun, but nothing changed.  System in short:  Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit. i3 processor. UEFI bios. 128Gb SSD drive. The SSD has a 47 Mb EFI partition and the rest mounted as '/' (XFS).
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The TL;DR, added in the edit:  The question is: How can I make the BIOS prefer GRUB over Windows Boot Manager on the same UEFI boot partition? The problem is not with Grub; Grub does the right thing when the BIOS starts it. The problem is not with &quot;the disk isn't bootable,&quot; because both the Windows UEFI bootstrap and the Grub UEFI bootstrap are bootable. The problem is which UEFI bootstrap the BIOS chooses to boot from.  I'm setting up a new computer, and want it to by default boot into Ubuntu, but have the option to select Windows on boot. This is especially important if power goes out and comes back; I won't even be in the house. I started out by installing Ubuntu 17.04 on my internal NVMe disk, partitioned with GPT to use half the disk, and a separate UEFI boot partition. GRUB boots that just fine, and I see the GRUB boot menu on start-up where I can select whatever items GRUB knows about. Then I installed Windows 10 Pro from a recently downloaded ISO. It installed Windows Boot Manager onto the same UEFI partition, and left the Ubuntu intact (great!) and that boots fine into Windows 10. However, it did &quot;something&quot; that makes the UEFI firmware immediately select the Windows Boot Manager rather than GRUB on power-up. The only way to boot Linux now is to use the BIOS boot manager (F11 on my BIOS) and select the GRUB boot loader manually. The UEFI BIOS knows that there are multiple bootable installs on the UEFI partition, because I can choose between them in the boot manager. However, when I'm in the setup menu in the UEFI BIOS, it just lets me choose &quot;UEFI boot my internal drive&quot; in the boot priority selection -- it doesn't let me choose which particular boot loader on that partition to use. And, by default, it chooses Windows, not GRUB. The internets (and this site) suggests that the old way to fix this is to run update-grub (so GRUB recognizes Windows) and then grub-install (to put GRUB back on the device.) I have done this, but unfortunately, it still has the behavior as described above, where the BIOS by default chooses Windows Boot Manager. (update-grub does find the Windows Boot Manager install, and adds that to the menu, and that menu item works when I manually choose the GRUB partition in the UEFI boot manager.) What can I do to make GRUB the &quot;default&quot; boot on my UEFI boot partition? Using a MSI X399 Carbon motherboard. Second edit: Because the correct answer ends up being mentioned in a comment to a response, I'll repeat it here: &quot;BCDEDIT&quot; in an admin shell on Windows is the working solution. The others don't work.
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Currently I am using a dual boot with Windows7 and Ubuntu 12.04LTS.  I would like to try Windows8. Not because I like it, but more and more people are using it.  I have created a partition where I would like to install it. I have only one physical drive.  What should I do to create a triple-boot and don't mess up my Ubuntu? This is my primary OS. But occasionally I need my Windows7.
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I have Ubuntu on my laptop. Now I want install Windows 7 in a dual-boot. How can I do this? I can't lose my Ubuntu files, and I'm afraid that I might break . Go  for UEFI only!
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Update: Question and answer below also applies to Ubuntu 16.04  I have a computer with dual SSDs and Win (7) pre-installed on another disk. The pre-installation uses (U)EFI/GPT boot. I want to install Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit desktop on a RAID1 root partition on my SSDs and still be able to dual-boot my Win7 system. Is this possible?   using the desktop installer did not work, probably because it (implicitly) assumes MBR booting. Neither did , probably for the same reason.
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I installed windows 10 on my laptop in UEFI mode with HDD GPT disk format, then I installed Ubuntu 16.04LTS on another partition. So I have Ubuntu dualboot with Windows 10 now.  I also installed rEFInd (it's like GUI for you to choose between different OSs) because I don't wanna use Grub2 as the default bootloader. Now I want to have Windows 7 too, but when I boot from the USB stick, an error screen showed up saying something like  the windows boot manager is having problems due to a recent hardware change   My system is still working fine so I don't know if the problem came from my system or if the setup I want is impossible.
95201
I have two separate SSD's. One of them has Windows 10 Pro installed, and the other has Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS.   When my computer boots I get no grub menu to choose the operating system I want to boot into, it directly boots into Ubuntu automatically. I can boot into windows with on problems when setting its SSD as the first one in the boot sequence in the BIOS.  I have a third 2TB HDD that I use only for storage. Here is the information summary after running bootinfoscript  ============================= Boot Info Summary: ===============================   =&gt; Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda.  =&gt; Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb.  =&gt; Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdc and looks at sector 1 of      the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks      in partition 112 for .  sda1: __________________________________________________________________________      File system:       ntfs     Boot sector type:  Windows Vista/7: NTFS     Boot sector info:  No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.     Operating System:       Boot files:        /bootmgr /Boot/BCD  sda2: __________________________________________________________________________      File system:       ntfs     Boot sector type:  Windows Vista/7: NTFS     Boot sector info:  No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.     Operating System:       Boot files:        /Windows/System32/winload.exe  sda3: __________________________________________________________________________      File system:       ntfs     Boot sector type:  Windows Vista/7: NTFS     Boot sector info:  No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.     Operating System:       Boot files:          sdb1: __________________________________________________________________________      File system:       ext4     Boot sector type:  -     Boot sector info:      Operating System:  Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS     Boot files:        /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab  sdb2: __________________________________________________________________________      File system:       swap     Boot sector type:  -     Boot sector info:   sdb3: __________________________________________________________________________      File system:       vfat     Boot sector type:  FAT32     Boot sector info:  No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.     Operating System:       Boot files:        /efi/ubuntu/grubx64.efi /efi/ubuntu/MokManager.efi                         /efi/ubuntu/shimx64.efi  sdb4: __________________________________________________________________________      File system:       ext4     Boot sector type:  -     Boot sector info:      Operating System:       Boot files:          sdc1: __________________________________________________________________________      File system:       ntfs     Boot sector type:  Windows Vista/7: NTFS     Boot sector info:  No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.     Operating System:       Boot files:         I have installed Linux before many times, however this is my first time installing it on a separate drive. Do I need to do anything extra/different seeing that is is installed on a separate drive to Windows?
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I want to install Ubuntu and learn Linux.  I've been using Raspbian a bit and really would like to get away from Windows as much as possible.  The only problem is some of the games I use requires Windows for now.  Also, I'm taking classes through Coursera and using online tutorials to learn Linux from and would like an operating system installed besides the Raspbian I have on my Pi.  I have a desktop computer with Windows 10 installed on a SSD (M.2 if it matters) and another HDD used to store files. I have a new 1 TB HDD I'd like to install Ubuntu on. My plan is to install it and place the GRUB bootloader on the new drive.  I can then point the UEFI to that drive as the primary boot drive and GRUB should allow me to choose Linux or Windows. My thought is if I do this, I can change the boot order in UEFI back to C:\ drive and have the machine boot directly to Windows as it does now. Then I have the option of having a dual boot system or a Windows only system. Is this viable?  Should I use the whole drive for Linux?    Also, I'm reading a couple different opinions on disabling Secure Boot and Fast Boot from the UEFI.  Any reason not to disable these in my plan above?  Any other advice is welcome. I appreciate the help!
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A while back I installed Linux on my SSD, sdb1. I also have a 1 terabyte drive for my home directory, sdc1. I have Windows on another hard drive, sda1, which I haven’t booted into in over 2 years. It is a terabyte in size. I would like to get rid of Windows and utilize that extra space without reinstalling Linux, but Grub is on the Windows hard drive, sda1. What I would like to do is put Grub onto my SSD, sdb1, if possible in order to format the Windows drive, sda1, and have extra space. It is Legacy BIOS on the computer.
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I have Windows 8 pre-installed, and then I installed GRUB with Ubuntu. Ubuntu is not my thing, so now I want to remove it along with GRUB. From what I have learned, with UEFI, GRUB does not overwrite the windows bootloader in the EFI partition and is stored elsewhere. How would I remove GRUB and make my PC use the Windows bootloader instead? It should be noted that I created a separate /boot partition when installing Ubuntu.
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I have a computer that dual-boots (or tri-boots) Windows 8 Release Preview, Windows 7, and Ubuntu 12.04. Grub boots between Windows 8 and Ubuntu; for which I use primarily. Recently, I decided to remove Ubuntu, as I hardly used it. I deleted the Ubuntu partition accidentally before replacing the Grub bootloader. Now, whenever I want to boot the machine, it gives me the "grub-rescue" prompt -- I am unable to boot into either Windows (8 nor 7), nor Ubuntu (except via USB, of course). I do not have any Windows 7/8 recovery media, so that isn't an option. Please note that after I deleted the Ubuntu partition, I put the PC into hibernate, and then turned it on. This means the C:\ [Windows 8] drive cannot be mounted. I don't know if that is bad, but it definitely doesn't make things better.  I am currently booting Ubuntu via USB, in an effort to restore the Windows bootloader. I have looked into using boot-repair to solve the problem using the instructions , although after attempting to apply the changes, it gave the error: "Please install the [mbr] packages. Then try again." I don't know why I'm getting this error; is there a way to install the 'mbr packages?' I honestly don't know what exactly they are, nor how to install them. Are there any other options I have not yet exhausted to be able to boot back into Windows, in the case that there is a better way? I want to set the bootloader to boot into Windows 8, but booting into either Windows 7 or 8 is fine (I can use EasyBCD from there). Is there a simple solution to this? I've checked BIOS, and I haven't been able to find a way to boot into Windows.