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I have a lenovo z500 with dual boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu 13.04.
Recently I deleted the Linux partition (from windows disk manager) but did not remove the boot loader.Now the next time I booted it gave the following error. 

No such partition found 
Grub rescue

I tried to make a super grub disk but when I insert it in the machine nothing happened it still gave the same response.

Please help.

Stormvirux
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Namit Juneja
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  • Do you want the windows bootloader back or do you want the grub back? – Stormvirux Sep 09 '13 at 05:16
  • Of course it will give you the same response. It relies on grub.cfg which you deleted. Now you have to run Windows Setup disk or Boot-Repair disk. – Danatela Sep 09 '13 at 06:23
  • The answers to the question to which Danatela refers are all inapplicable in this case. Most of the answers there assume a BIOS-mode installation, but the Lenovo Z500 ships with Windows 8, and is therefore an EFI-enabled computer. Methods of restoring a BIOS-mode Windows to bootability won't work on EFI-based computers. The EFI-mode solution is actually likely to be quite simple if Boot Repair hasn't messed things up. – Rod Smith Sep 09 '13 at 14:33
  • None of the answers to the question that's marked as a duplicate address the current question; those answers all assume a BIOS-based installation, whereas Namit Juneja almost certainly has an EFI-based installation. See my answer here for a correct answer. – Rod Smith Sep 10 '13 at 17:28
  • A question that's closer to being a duplicate of this one is http://askubuntu.com/questions/304558/uninstalling-grub-from-uefi-laptop/304892. – Rod Smith Sep 10 '13 at 17:34

1 Answers1

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Your computer almost certainly uses EFI-mode booting, but Super GRUB 2 Disk works on a computer that boots in BIOS mode. The closest thing I'm aware of to Super GRUB 2 Disk for EFI-based systems is the USB flash drive or CD-R version of my rEFInd boot manager. You should be able to use it to get into Windows. For a longer-term solution, you should delete GRUB from the EFI System Partition (ESP) on your computer. You can do this from a Linux live CD or from Windows:

  1. Mount the ESP:
    • In Linux, the ESP is identified as having its "boot flag" set in parted or GParted. Find the ESP and mount it somewhere (/boot/efi is traditional, but a live CD is unlikely to have that mount point, so you can use somewhere else).
    • In Windows, open an Administrator Command Prompt window and type mountvol S: /S. You can use a mount point other than S:, if you like.
  2. Delete the EFI/ubuntu directory, and the files it contains, from the ESP.

Note that this procedure assumes that you have not run Boot Repair on the computer. If you've run Boot Repair, this procedure may be ineffective, but it should do no harm. If you've run Boot Repair and this procedure does not work, run Boot Repair again and select the option from the Advanced menu to restore backed-up files. That should get Windows booting again.

A couple of alternatives to this procedure are to install rEFInd to your hard disk (which might be desirable if you want to dual-boot with another OS) or to use efibootmgr in Linux to re-order the firmware's boot options. (EFI version 2 shells and some firmware user interfaces provide equivalent functionality to efibootmgr, too.)

Rod Smith
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