BALID Training Programme on Koha, 3-7 September 2013 | Delete GRUB 1

Delete GRUB (GRand Unified Bootloader) from Windows 7 / Linux dual booting and recover disc space

a. Delete GRUB

If you do not want Linux anymore and want your full drive dedicated to Windows 7 again, here’s how to do it.

You must start Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) to. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Put the Windows Vista or Windows 7 installation disc in the disc drive, and then start the computer.

2. Soon you will be presented with the initial setup screen; more often than not you can keep the defaults and push ‘Next’.

3. On the next screen (shown below) do not click on the ‘Install Now’ button, click on the ‘Repair your computer’ button in the lower left of the screen

BALID Training Programme on Koha, 3-7 September 2013 | Delete GRUB 2

4. Click Repair your computer. 5. At this point the installer will look for (and hopefully find) your installation of

Windows 7. Select the correct installation and click ‘Next’

6. The next window that comes up is the ‘System Recover Options’ screen. This screen lists all the tools on the disc that can help you recover from various errors, the one we’re concerned with is ‘Command Prompt’

BALID Training Programme on Koha, 3-7 September 2013 | Delete GRUB 3

7. When the command prompt opens, enter the following: bootrec.exe /FixMbr and other command option shown bellow

bootrec /fixmbr bootrec /fixboot bootrec /rebuildbcd

Assuming everything went as planned, just close the command prompt, select to reboot the machine and pop out the disc. Part one done. When it shows nothing after the bootrec /rebuildbcd command, click windows startup link to fix problem.

b. Recover disc space

To reclaim your hard drive space and make your Windows 7 partition whole again.

1. Click on the ‘Start’ button and in the ‘Search for programs and files’ box type: diskmgmt.msc, then click on the ‘diskmgmt’ icon that shows in the list:

BALID Training Programme on Koha, 3-7 September 2013 | Delete GRUB 4

2. Once Disk Management launches you will see something similar to the screenshot below. There should be at least two partition that have no drive letter and no file system listed, these were your data and swap partitions in Linux:

3. Now it’s time to delete those partitions ONLY DELETE PARTITIONS THAT HAVE NO DRIVE LETTER AND NO FILE SYSTEM LISTED, otherwise you may lose some data you did not intend to lose. To delete the partition either click on the partition and press the delete key or right click on it and select ‘Delete Volume’

BALID Training Programme on Koha, 3-7 September 2013 | Delete GRUB 5

4. Once the volumes, that were previously for Linux, are deleted you will be left with a big green area that is listed as ‘Free Space’

5. We need to convert this “Free Space” into previous (NTFS) file system with drive letter and volume as per instruction, the easiest part.

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6. Follow all the defaults (keep clicking ‘Next) and when you’re done you’ll have one big Windows partition. (it depends on your requirement)

That should get you back to the point you were at before you did your dual boot.

Compiled by

Md. Zahid Hossain Shoeb Deputy Librarian (Systems) Independent University, Bangladesh