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I had a dual boot installation (Ubuntu 14 LTS and Windows 8.1). Then I wiped the hard drive partition that Ubuntu was installed on. After that the grub bootloader was still there when I turned my computer on. Today I merged, wiped, and formatted some partitions and when the pc tried to boot it displayed the grub rescue command line. I searched online for help but the Is command doesn't work. Can you please help me?

TheSchwa
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USER__
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  • Was Windows 8 pre-installed so UEFI? If so just go into UEFI and its boot menu and choose the Windows entry. If BIOS install then you need to run repairs to install Windows boot loader to MBR. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestoreUbuntu/XP/Vista/7Bootloader or: http://askubuntu.com/questions/133533/how-to-remove-ubuntu-and-put-windows-back-on – oldfred Apr 26 '15 at 16:11
  • The computer came with Windows 7 HP. – USER__ Apr 26 '15 at 16:15

3 Answers3

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If you're just sticking with Windows, I would recommend making a usb boot disk to boot into windows and restore the boot partition. I would recommend the same with Linux if you are keeping that.

Gregory Michalik
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  • I have Windows 10 Tech.Preview on a usb flash drive. I changed the BIOS configuration so it will boot up from the usb flash drive but it still booted up in grub rescue. But if it works how exactly so I restore The boot partition? – USER__ Apr 26 '15 at 16:19
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So I guess you must have installed the boot-loader sda1 while installing Ubuntu and hence you are landing at grub-rescue. As already pointed out, it is best to use windows DVD and repair the corrupted MBR. If you do not have windows DVD, you can also try using Rescatux tool.

Ron
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  • Do I just download it and burn it on a DVD or a flash drive?? – USER__ Apr 26 '15 at 16:20
  • Whichever you like, it doesn't matter. If you want to save a copy for a long time use DVD. If you have a USB and prefer to carry it in a USB, go with USB. It is completely up to you. – Ron Apr 26 '15 at 16:31
  • Try using this tool if booting from USB doesn't work. Boot into a repair prompt and rescue your MBR by typing bootrec /fixmbr. There are excellent resources here and here – Ron Apr 28 '15 at 06:56
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Well, I would NEVER recommend to delete any GRUB files. After you install Ubuntu, GRUB will be set as default. When you formatted those partitions, you removed essential GRUB files. First you need to know if the vmlinuz file is still in that partition.

On grub rescue prompt, type:

find vmlinuz

And then press ENTER.

If this file is still there, then after you run the command above something like (hd0,0) will be prompted. If it was deleted, some error message will appear.

Please post what happened after these instructions.

NOTE: There is a faster way to boot directly into Windows, but you will have to make this process every time you want to boot, and this may be very annoying. First you need to know two things:

1) How many HDs do you have? If the answer is 2 or more, you need to know in which HD Windows is.

2) How many partitions do you have in you Windows HD? You need to know in what partition Windows is.

Then you can run these commands in grub rescue:

root (hdx,y)

Replacing x with your Windows HD number (Important: in the grub rescue language, HD1 = hd0, then if your HD number is 3, you will type hd2) and replacing y with your Windows partition number.

makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

This should work to boot Windows, but, as I already said, it is not a definitive solution.

Eduardo Cola
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