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Moving from dual-boot to single-boot

CentipeedCentipeed Registered User regular
edited February 2010 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
My laptop originally came with just Windows, on a single partition. I installed Linux, on a new partition, so that I could dual-boot into Windows and Ubuntu.

Now, I want to go back to just Windows, on a single partition.

I'm in the process of putting Gparted Live on a USB key, but I'm worried that if I get rid of Linux, and make it one partition again, Windows won't boot. Right now, the computer boots into GRUB, and then I select Windows from there. Does this mean that Linux is in charge of loading the OSs, and that getting rid of it will fuck up booting somehow?

Centipeed on

Posts

  • BarrakkethBarrakketh Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Centipeed wrote: »
    My laptop originally came with just Windows, on a single partition. I installed Linux, on a new partition, so that I could dual-boot into Windows and Ubuntu.

    Now, I want to go back to just Windows, on a single partition.

    I'm in the process of putting Gparted Live on a USB key, but I'm worried that if I get rid of Linux, and make it one partition again, Windows won't boot. Right now, the computer boots into GRUB, and then I select Windows from there. Does this mean that Linux is in charge of loading the OSs, and that getting rid of it will fuck up booting somehow?

    GRUB is in charge, so part of it will look in /boot (whether it be a directory in the / folder or a separate partition and simply mounted there), so you would be unable to boot if you nuked the Linux partition.

    The recovery console can help you. Use FIXMBR and the Windows bootloader will be restored and things should work fine again.

    Barrakketh on
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  • CentipeedCentipeed Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Barrakketh wrote: »
    Centipeed wrote: »
    My laptop originally came with just Windows, on a single partition. I installed Linux, on a new partition, so that I could dual-boot into Windows and Ubuntu.

    Now, I want to go back to just Windows, on a single partition.

    I'm in the process of putting Gparted Live on a USB key, but I'm worried that if I get rid of Linux, and make it one partition again, Windows won't boot. Right now, the computer boots into GRUB, and then I select Windows from there. Does this mean that Linux is in charge of loading the OSs, and that getting rid of it will fuck up booting somehow?

    GRUB is in charge, so part of it will look in /boot (whether it be a directory in the / folder or a separate partition and simply mounted there), so you would be unable to boot if you nuked the Linux partition.

    The recovery console can help you. Use FIXMBR and the Windows bootloader will be restored and things should work fine again.

    Thanks, this is exactly what I needed.

    Centipeed on
  • SeeksSeeks Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    If you're running Windows 7, you won't be able to go with just 1 partition. Windows 7 has a separate boot partition, in addition to its install/base/everything else partition. If you're running Win 7 and don't mind a clean slate install, I'd just use GParted (or FDISK from the windows recovery console... if that's the correct command, I can't quite recall), delete the non-boot windows partition and linux partition, make a new ntfs partition out of the unallocated space, and reinstall windows on it.

    Seeks on
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  • travathiantravathian Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    If he's going to do a clean install, booting from the Win7 media will display all of the partitions and provide an option to simply blast the drive from there.

    travathian on
  • SeeksSeeks Registered User regular
    edited February 2010
    Oh.

    Well... carry on, nothing to see here.

    Seeks on
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