How to delete the bootloader

Question

I dualboot my pc, windows 7 64 bit, and some linux distro, nowadays i'm using crunchbang.

I once had a problem, i lost my bootloader so i created one using easybcd. Later on, i installed a linux distro which created its own bootloader.

So when i turn on the computer, the first thing i see is

That's the bootloader that crunchbang created, if i don't choose anything, it will boot into crunchbang. If i pick any option however, i will see the second bootloader, which is created by easybcd

If i don't choose anything here, it will boot into windows 7, if i choose an option, the chosen OS will boot.

I read this question, won't work for me, since i have 2 bootloaders, tried deleting windows bootloader before, which is so easy using easybcd. I think i have to do the following:

1. Delete crunchbang bootloader, since it is the first bootloader.
2. Use super grub2 disk to boot windows.
3. Recreate the bootloader using easybcd

I'm not quit sure if that would work, so I'm asking you to see what you think.

By the way, i can't use any solution that requires me to use linux os live cd, live cds don't work on my pc due to nomodeset problem. I have no windows live cd, but i have created windows repair cd which works well.

Answer 1

The "main" bootloader (the one on sector 0 of your hard drive) seems to be GRUB. You also have the Windows bootloader likely at the beginning of the Windows partition.

For GRUB to boot Windows it needs to "chain load" the Windows bootloader - it can't boot Windows directly.

If you plan to experiment further with Linux distributions/multiple OSes, I'd suggest you do this:

• Use EasyBCD or bcdedit.exe in Windows to remove Ubuntu to from the Windows bootloader - this will prevent that menu from showing up on each boot.
• Change the GRUB configuration and add an Ubuntu boot entry to it. You can probably clone an existing boot line and simply plug in the partition your Ubuntu install is at.

So this will get you to a point where you don't have two bootloader menus on boot "all over the place."

Your situation is complex with having so many operating systems, so you may need to simply update your bootloaders yourself when something changes and not let external utilities do it.

Things may be easier if you put two disks in your system and use one disk for Windows operating systems and another disk for Linux operating systems. You can use the boot device menu of your BIOS to select a hard drive to boot from.

Answer 2

It took me 4 hours to figure out exactly what to do to fix it, I tried different methods, I deleted and recreated grub many times and repaired windows a billion time, finally here's how I fixed it:

1. Download and burn boot-repair-disk on a CD or USB
2. Open Easybcd, Click on BCD backup repair and do the following: reset BCD configuration and re-create/repair boot files
3. Click on BCD deployment, click write MBR and Install BCD
4. click on Add new entry and Add windows, do not add linux OS
5. Click on Edit boot menu and uncheck the default checkbox, you do not want windows to be started by default, and check skip the boot menu, you do want to skip easybcd's bootloader.
6. Boot boot-repair-disk and repair grub, if the automatic repair didn't repair it, click on the advanced button and recreate grub, it will tell you the steps, you just need to open xterm and follow the commands you see. Once done, you need to use boot-repair-disk again, and now use the automatic solution, it will detect windows.

Note

If you tried to remove everything from easybcd, like if easybcd's boot menu is empty or something, then windows won't boot, you'll have to use windows repair disk to repair windows partition, and when you're done, you're going to see something like windows 7 (recovered) boot option, it's better to follow the steps listed above.

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I think that just by spiking easybcd's boot menu, and unchecking the default OS checkbox, you will be able to hide easybcd's boot loader and use linux's bootloader, but i like to follow the steps above just be sure that i have no errors or something.