Questions about best method to remove Mint from my dual boot setup
I've had Windows 10 and Linux Mint 18.x installed in a dual boot forever now. Probably since 2018. Anyways, I'd like to cleanly remove the old Linux Mint from my hard disk and free up some space. Then I will need to wipe out GRUB so only Windows 10 boots up. My plan is to essentially just delete this partition highlighted where I installed Mint.
https://imgur.com/a/YMnRUAn NOTE: Image not showing up? Here's a link to my partition in Windows. I'm not 100% sure which hard disk I installed GRUB to but I'm pretty sure it was my E: drive at the bottom. Any idea how to verify where GRUB is installed? I could boot up to the Linux mint and run sudo fdisk -l or something. I also believe this syntax might work but have not tried yet. But, I don't really need to know this but might be good just to be aware. Code:
sudo fdisk -l 2>/dev/null | egrep "Disk /|/dev/" | sed "s#^/dev/#Part /dev/#" | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/://' | xargs -n1 -IX sudo sh -c "hexdump -v -s 0x80 -n 2 -e '2/1 \"%x\" \"\\n\"' X | xargs -n1 -IY sh -c \"case \"Y\" in '48b4') echo X: GRUB 2 v1.96 ;; 'aa75' | '5272') echo X: GRUB Legacy ;; '7c3c') echo X: GRUB 2 v1.97 oder v1.98 ;; '020') echo X: GRUB 2 v1.99 ;; *) echo X: Kein GRUB Y ;; esac\"" 1) Use Windows recovery USB drive and choose the menu where you can fix problems booting or whatever and it should give you a place to reformat the MBR. More less, This videos method. 2) Run this sequence of commands. This has worked on one of my older laptops that was Dual boot with Windows to remove a linux load and only have windows boot so I suppose this should work as well. Boot with the same Windows recovery USB and then run this command sequence. Boot with Recovery USB bootrec /scanos bootrec /fixmbr bootrec /fixboot bootrec /rebuildbcd Thanks for any ideas on which method is best. I'm pretty sure my good old rig is UEFI if that matters. |
Doesn't look like a UEFI install - try expanding the Status column in that Disk Manager display; it'll indicate if a EFI partition is present. If it was, rectification would be trivial.
I'd go with the option to use the boot USB to fix it. I seem to remember it took a couple of goes last I had to (Win 7 probably). Been well over a decade since I needed fixmbr and fixboot. Whatever you do, fix the bootloader before deleting any partition(s). |
go into windows, make it bootable (probably some kind of recovery option?) and just remove/reuse/reformat the other partition(s).
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The boot flag was only relevant if the M$oft loader was installed in the MBR - here it seems grub is, and is unwanted. The loader code in the MBR needs to be overwritten.
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Windows Boot Manager |
FYI, I confirmed I'm definitely using legacy MBR on this dual boot setup.
This method shows multiple ways to check. I'm going to go ahead and re-create my old Ghost version 15 backup points created now for a last ditch potential restore in case of issues. I'll report back what method ended up working. I might try method 1 above to just try and have the Windows recovery USB restore the MBR / BCD settings to default windows boot.ini or whatever. |
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I booted into my Mint load and gathered some output. Any ideas what the best method to proceed is? I'm pretty sure GRUB is located on my D: Drive but not 100% sure. Thanks for any input.
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Where is GRUB? |
The image from Disk Management in your first post shows the first drive, Disk 0 which is 596GB also shows in the fdisk output in your last post as a 596GB drive and the Linux naming convention for it shows it as /dev/sdc. This is the only drive with any Linux filesystems on it so that would be where your Mint install is. So you have Grub installed on the / (root) partition. Since you are using a Legacy system, you would need a minimal Grub code in the MBR and we could 'guess' that it is /dev/sdc but that is not certain. To be certain, you would have had to notice the default when you installed Mint which I doubt you did. You could also run boot repair from the link below and select the 2nd option and then ONLY select to Create BootInfo Summary. This will output a file and at the very top of it you will be told which drive has Grub code in the MBR. There are other ways to get that information but and if you wanted, you could do an online search.
Your windows shows the "C" drive as the 111GB drive which would be /dev/sdd from Mint. Why don't you set that drive to first boot priority in the BIOS and see if it boots. If it boots Mint from Grub, then you know which drive has Grub in the MBR. If it boots windows, then you know it has windows boot code in the MBR and you are set. Simply format the partitions on which you have Mint installed. I'm not sure why you think your bootloader is on the 'D' drive, the one labelled 'Games' as the winload.exe file is on the standard 'C' drive, /dev/sdd. If you have the windows repair DVD/USB, why not just format the Linux partitions and install windows code to the MBR of the drive it is on? You don't need to 'remove' Mint, it is an operating system not an application so just format to a windows filesystem. |
Thanks for this info yancek! I'm going to mess with this again soon. I also have the ultimate boot CD and Linux-Boot-Repair I could possibly use. I'm going to change the boot or or select individual drives upon starting my rig and seeing if it boots to Grub when selecting my 596GB Disk 0 drive to see if it boots GRUB on that. If so, I guess it's safe to say GRUB resides on that disk. I'll also try my /dev/sdd Windows SSD drive but I'm almost certain I did not install GRUB on that. I'm aware my Mint is installed on that drive. I'm also probably going to use an old tool called EasyBCD where you can backup your BCD, etc. I believe it's now known as EasyRE but I just noticed you have to pay for this so might skip messing with that. Also, where is the boot repair link you mentioned? This might be good to create the bootinfo summary you mentioned for further review.
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https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair You can backup the windows bcd boot manager files from windows without any third party software. The link below gives an explanation and you should be able to find any number of sites also explaining the process. https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...e-windows.html |
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I also ran the boot-repair software. Here's that output. It's interesting that boot-repair see's 3 OS's. It sees my old Windows 7 that I upgraded from years ago when it went EOL. ================================ 3 OS detected ================================= OS#1: Windows 7 on sdd1 OS#2: Windows 10 (boot) on mapper/isw_eaajfaaaeg_Volume0p1 OS#3: Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia (18.3) on sdc6 I attached the complete output and a screen shot I took of GRUB when my system boots up. Thanks for any other advise on how to move forward! SCREEN SHOT LINK> https://imgur.com/a/FkjWnZd https://imgur.com/a/FkjWnZd |
Doesn't look like you used the 2nd option for boot repair explained at their site as it generally numbers each line which makes it easier to refer to specifics in the file. Also, there is a link given by boot repair which you simply could have posted here.
In any case, you have Grub installed in the MBR of sdc (the 596GB drive) and that is the drive on which you have Mint installed (sdc6) with a swap (sdc5) and another Linux filesystem on sdc7. Windows 10 is on sdd which is the 111GB drive, whatever that might be called in windows. So use the windows boot/repair usb you have and install windows code to the 111GB drive. Reboot and select that drive in the BIOS to boot from to test boot it then simply format the Linux partitions on sdc (596gb drive). You also already have 2 large windows ntfs partitions on this drive, sdc1 and sdc8 which apparently was your old windows 7 install. You could simply expand the ntfs partitions on this drive but probably simpler to delete/format them. You don't seem to be using the windows 7 in any case? If you intend to try/test different Linux systems, I would suggest you pay attention to the support period for it as Mint 18.3 has not been supported for nearly 3 years (April, 2021). You might test on a usb or in virtual software before installing. |
Thanks again yancek! I'm going to look into doing this in the next few days. Appreciate your valuable input!
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Good luck.
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Hi yancek, I just booted my PC using a Windows 10 recovery USB drive. When I went to the Advanced menu > Command Prompt it brings you to
X:\ I typed the following. bootrec /ScanOs It came back with Successfully scanned Windows installations. Total identified Windows installations: 0 The operations completed successfully So, I'm not sure why this command does not discover any Windows OS that's on my SSD drive that is my 111GB /sdd you mentioned above. Also, I confirmed if I hit my F8 while booting and Select my Intel 0 (SSD) drive it starts a "Windows recovery" spinning circle thing. I hit ctrl-alt-del after seeing that so I didn't boot all the way into Windows using this drive to boot off of but imagine it would of recovered or booted? I was debating on trying this method instead. bootsect /nt60 c: /mbr Quote:
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