HowTo: Remove Ubuntu (& Restore Windows)

[thisiam]

Ok, so was going to do this to see what it does, but instead of downloading that file i was going to boot windows recovery and fixmbr->restart and delete the linux partition.
would this work aswell or am i going to mess up the whole drive and have to reinstall?

[Fenris_rising]

ive just cocked up a dual install, due to impatiance on my part, but its worked better than i hoped. i lost XP partition and hardy heron now has an 80gb drive all to its self, works lovely too. still i am downloading the gparted live disk as it may be a useful tool. great tut even a newb like me understands it.

Fenris

[Duck2006]

ive just cocked up a dual install, due to impatiance on my part, but its worked better than i hoped. i lost XP partition and hardy heron now has an 80gb drive all to its self, works lovely too. still i am downloading the gparted live disk as it may be a useful tool. great tut even a newb like me understands it.

Fenris

Try parted magic.

http://partedmagic.com/wiki/PartedMagic.php

[Shadius]

how do you delete the ubuntu partitions? Gparted is only seeing one partition. It just says "unallocated".

[Shadius]

sooo, how do I figure out if my boot device is device 0 ?

also, does Mbrfix work for Windows Vista? edit: apparently it does

edit: nevermind, I found it. It was indeed drive 0, but checking never hurts. If anyone else wants to check it, but doesn't know how: In Windows go to control panel - system management - computer management - disk management. There you get an overview of your hard drive and how it's partitioned. At least that's what I think I'm looking at

Is this for XP or Vista?

[Shadius]

Umm...getting error in command prompt. Am I supposed to execute Fixmbr after downloading it?

[Shadius]

Okay, I know some people are going to have a cow because I'm posting this. But the truth is, there are a lot of people trying Ubuntu now since it has gotten more press. If you search the forums, you will notice there are people (A) looking to remove Ubuntu and go back to just Windows, and (B) people who have attempted to remove Ubuntu for just Windows only to blame Ubuntu when Windows doesn't boot. It's a fact of life that people are going try this out and want to delete it, so why not give them a way to do it that is fairly easy and will hopefully leave them with a good feeling, instead of getting mad at Ubuntu because the partitions needed by grub are gone?

So......for all of you who have a dual-boot system and are looking to remove Ubuntu for now, here are some tips. NEVER NEVER NEVER just remove the Ubuntu partitions - you won't be able to boot Windows because the information pointed to by your master boot record will be gone. Instead, follow these easy steps:

(1) Boot you Windows installation
(2) Click on this link Get Mbrfix
(3) Download the program, unzip it and copy it to your root folder (I'll assume c:\)
(4) Open up the command prompt in Windows by going to start/accessories/command prompt
(5) Type:
cd \ and press "Enter"
mbrfix /drive 0 fixmbr /yes and press "Enter"

*PLEASE NOTE* The above assumes your boot device is device 0 - if you are not sure on this please post for help.

(6) Close the command prompt window


*PLEASE NOTE* The following assumes you want to get rid of your Ubuntu partitions and resize you Windows partition(s) to take up that space. If you do not wish to do so, you can stop now.

(7) Put your Ubuntu LiveCD back in the CD drive and reboot your PC so the the Ubuntu desktop comes up
(8) On the Ubuntu desktop, look at the top menu bar and go to applications/accessories/terminal
(9) When the terminal Window comes up type:
sudo gparted and press "Enter"

This brings up the disk manager. You want to:

(a) delete all non-Windows partitions
(b) resize your Windows partition to be larger (optional - you may want to leave this alone so you can
come back and try Ubuntu again! )

(10) When you have finished deleting the Ubuntu partitions, just restart your PC, removing the CD from the
drive before it boots again.

If everything went correctly, your PC should just automatically boot Windows. Note that on the first boot of Windows after you have changed the disk (especially if you resized the Windows partition), Windows may run a chkdsk - this is normal and should be ok.

If you have already deleted you Linux partitions and are getting grub errors, please try this as suggested by this user (thanks for the neat addition!!)

Bothered
A Carafe of Ubuntu
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Beans: 136
Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn User
Windows User


Re: HowTo: Remove Ubuntu (& Restore Windows)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you delete the ubuntu partitions without running mbrfix then you can use the ubuntu LiveCD to restore the master boot record by:

1. Booting from the ubuntu LiveCD
2. Enabling universe repositories - launch System->Administation->Software Sources and check the "Community maintained Open Source software (universe)"
3. Installing the "ms-sys" package - click Applications->Accessories->Terminal and type "sudo apt-get update" and then "sudo apt-get install ms-sys".
4. Finally restore the Windows master boot record by entering the command "ms-sys -w /dev/[drive]", where [drive] is the hard disk whose Windows master boot record you want to restore. You can find out which this is by launching gparted (System->Administration->GNOME Partition Editor) and cycling through the available drives until you find your Windows partition

- - - - -

Hope this helps, and please let me know if anyone finds any errors. Also, for anyone using this post, "we" really hope you will come back to Ubuntu someday! Linux, and Ubuntu, will be waiting!

============================

Trouble shooting:

If, after following this guide, you can not boot to Windows you may need to boot a live CD and manually delete the Ubuntu partition (making it unpartitioned space, adding it to the Windows partition, or formatting it to FAT/NTFS). Additionally you need to be sure the MBR is set for Windows. You will need to search the forums for more help on that. In addition, the following Microsoft articles may be of help:


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/247804

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314458

===========================
(Thanks bodhi.zazen!!!)

Confused. Am I supposed to run Fixmbr after downloading it? Command prompt doesn't recognize "fixmbr". Help?

[Shadius]

Okay, I know some people are going to have a cow because I'm posting this. But the truth is, there are a lot of people trying Ubuntu now since it has gotten more press. If you search the forums, you will notice there are people (A) looking to remove Ubuntu and go back to just Windows, and (B) people who have attempted to remove Ubuntu for just Windows only to blame Ubuntu when Windows doesn't boot. It's a fact of life that people are going try this out and want to delete it, so why not give them a way to do it that is fairly easy and will hopefully leave them with a good feeling, instead of getting mad at Ubuntu because the partitions needed by grub are gone?

So......for all of you who have a dual-boot system and are looking to remove Ubuntu for now, here are some tips. NEVER NEVER NEVER just remove the Ubuntu partitions - you won't be able to boot Windows because the information pointed to by your master boot record will be gone. Instead, follow these easy steps:

(1) Boot you Windows installation
(2) Click on this link Get Mbrfix
(3) Download the program, unzip it and copy it to your root folder (I'll assume c:\)
(4) Open up the command prompt in Windows by going to start/accessories/command prompt
(5) Type:
cd \ and press "Enter"
mbrfix /drive 0 fixmbr /yes and press "Enter"

*PLEASE NOTE* The above assumes your boot device is device 0 - if you are not sure on this please post for help.

(6) Close the command prompt window


*PLEASE NOTE* The following assumes you want to get rid of your Ubuntu partitions and resize you Windows partition(s) to take up that space. If you do not wish to do so, you can stop now.

(7) Put your Ubuntu LiveCD back in the CD drive and reboot your PC so the the Ubuntu desktop comes up
(8) On the Ubuntu desktop, look at the top menu bar and go to applications/accessories/terminal
(9) When the terminal Window comes up type:
sudo gparted and press "Enter"

This brings up the disk manager. You want to:

(a) delete all non-Windows partitions
(b) resize your Windows partition to be larger (optional - you may want to leave this alone so you can
come back and try Ubuntu again! )

(10) When you have finished deleting the Ubuntu partitions, just restart your PC, removing the CD from the
drive before it boots again.

If everything went correctly, your PC should just automatically boot Windows. Note that on the first boot of Windows after you have changed the disk (especially if you resized the Windows partition), Windows may run a chkdsk - this is normal and should be ok.

If you have already deleted you Linux partitions and are getting grub errors, please try this as suggested by this user (thanks for the neat addition!!)

Bothered
A Carafe of Ubuntu
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Beans: 136
Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn User
Windows User


Re: HowTo: Remove Ubuntu (& Restore Windows)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you delete the ubuntu partitions without running mbrfix then you can use the ubuntu LiveCD to restore the master boot record by:

1. Booting from the ubuntu LiveCD
2. Enabling universe repositories - launch System->Administation->Software Sources and check the "Community maintained Open Source software (universe)"
3. Installing the "ms-sys" package - click Applications->Accessories->Terminal and type "sudo apt-get update" and then "sudo apt-get install ms-sys".
4. Finally restore the Windows master boot record by entering the command "ms-sys -w /dev/[drive]", where [drive] is the hard disk whose Windows master boot record you want to restore. You can find out which this is by launching gparted (System->Administration->GNOME Partition Editor) and cycling through the available drives until you find your Windows partition

- - - - -

Hope this helps, and please let me know if anyone finds any errors. Also, for anyone using this post, "we" really hope you will come back to Ubuntu someday! Linux, and Ubuntu, will be waiting!

============================

Trouble shooting:

If, after following this guide, you can not boot to Windows you may need to boot a live CD and manually delete the Ubuntu partition (making it unpartitioned space, adding it to the Windows partition, or formatting it to FAT/NTFS). Additionally you need to be sure the MBR is set for Windows. You will need to search the forums for more help on that. In addition, the following Microsoft articles may be of help:


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/247804

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314458

===========================
(Thanks bodhi.zazen!!!)

Okay, so I did the Fixmbr thing. I did sudo gparted in Ubuntu and I get "Partition-unallocated, Filesystem-unallocated, size 37.27 GiB, and other categories, Used, Unused, Flags are empty. This is the only things that shows. I try reloading devices from Gparted and I get a crash. Help please.

This is what I'm getting in Terminal.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo gparted
======================
libparted : 1.7.1
======================
Unable to open /dev/scd1 read-write (Read-only file system). /dev/scd1 has been opened read-only.
Unable to open /dev/scd1 - unrecognised disk label.
Can't have overlapping partitions.

[anewguy]

Okay, so I did the Fixmbr thing. I did sudo gparted in Ubuntu and I get "Partition-unallocated, Filesystem-unallocated, size 37.27 GiB, and other categories, Used, Unused, Flags are empty. This is the only things that shows. I try reloading devices from Gparted and I get a crash. Help please.

This is what I'm getting in Terminal.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo gparted
======================
libparted : 1.7.1
======================
Unable to open /dev/scd1 read-write (Read-only file system). /dev/scd1 has been opened read-only.
Unable to open /dev/scd1 - unrecognised disk label.
Can't have overlapping partitions.

Well, I've got to ask some questions first to try see how you got to where you are and just exactly where you are.

(1) Did you originally have a Windows partition, a Linux swap partition and a Linux "data" partition (probably ext3) on the disk when you started this process?

(2) How big is the disk?

(3) Did you follow the steps in order - did you run fixmbr before you booted the LiveCD, or did you perhaps not run fixmbr, tried the LiveCD, then went back and ran fixmbr?

(4) There are no other partitions showing in the list from gparted? If not, and if your disk is the size of the partition showing, then I THINK you already have a "clean" disk and will now have to install Windows from scratch.

I'm a little rusty at all this because I haven't used Windows now in a LONG time, and haven't had any need to run gparted off the LiveCD for a longer time.

Please provide those answers, then if I don't get back to you right a way wait a few days or see if someone else answers. As you noticed, it does no good to include the instructions in your reply. Also, if you aren't getting an answer, just put the word "bump" in a reply. A reply, even if a single character, will cause the post to jump to the top of the list. But don't abuse bump either. If you don't get an answer in the time frame you need, try creating your own post in the beginner's forum ask for help. Things like this tutorial I have looked at in a long time. You kind of write them, check them every once in a while (that might even be months in my case), and forget about them.

[Shadius]

Well, I've got to ask some questions first to try see how you got to where you are and just exactly where you are.

(1) Did you originally have a Windows partition, a Linux swap partition and a Linux "data" partition (probably ext3) on the disk when you started this process?

(2) How big is the disk?

(3) Did you follow the steps in order - did you run fixmbr before you booted the LiveCD, or did you perhaps not run fixmbr, tried the LiveCD, then went back and ran fixmbr?

(4) There are no other partitions showing in the list from gparted? If not, and if your disk is the size of the partition showing, then I THINK you already have a "clean" disk and will now have to install Windows from scratch.

I'm a little rusty at all this because I haven't used Windows now in a LONG time, and haven't had any need to run gparted off the LiveCD for a longer time.

Please provide those answers, then if I don't get back to you right a way wait a few days or see if someone else answers. As you noticed, it does no good to include the instructions in your reply. Also, if you aren't getting an answer, just put the word "bump" in a reply. A reply, even if a single character, will cause the post to jump to the top of the list. But don't abuse bump either. If you don't get an answer in the time frame you need, try creating your own post in the beginner's forum ask for help. Things like this tutorial I have looked at in a long time. You kind of write them, check them every once in a while (that might even be months in my case), and forget about them.

bump
Answers to your question:
1) Yes, I am dual-booting Windows and Ubuntu.
2) The disk size is 40 GB.
3) I don't think it's a clean disk. I don't have a Windows XP CD, I just have the recovery CD, and when I try to run that to Restore To Factory Settings, it just reboots.