HowTo: Remove Ubuntu (& Restore Windows)

[anewguy]

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)

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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!!!)

[Rocket2DMn]

You just gotta make sure you're using the right drive, not everybody is on drive 0.

[andnobodyslept]

Good idea, really usefull for those who forgot what the Live CD is for; as well as for those who jumped into the deep end of the pool and don't want to take the time to learn how to swim. Either way helping them leave with the feeling that the forums are helpful is a great way to bring them back.

[anewguy]

You are right, I forgot about that!!

EVERYONE - when you run the mbrfix program as above, you need to substitute the "zero" after the "/drive " with the correct drive number for the boot device you want to update.

Thanks, Rocket2DMn for the correction!

[Seisen]

You should add this in the tutorial and tips section so it doesn't get lost on here.

[Pablopcv]

It also work for those who want to change from ubuntu to kubutu or so. I think that i'm taking this tutorial to reinstall my ubuntu...

[LouisvilleLIP]

This is a great idea. Being able to easily remove Ubuntu will help reduce the bitter taste of defeat when new users can't figure something out. Plus, it would be nice to know how to undo a really dumb decision so that you can restart fresh, if needed.

[anewguy]

.

[anewguy]

bump. i see the question coming up so I wanted to bump the post up.

[confused57]

Excellent howto...MbrFix works well for Vista, as well as XP.

Herman has listed other possible ways on his website also:

http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/p18.htm