My experience with this involves a motherboard that uses BIOS, not UEFI. This topic assumes as such. EFI directions would be helpful if somebody would like to source those.
# Introduction
So you're done with Ubuntu MATE. That's alright, you can always try any Linux system again later! We enjoyed your company here while it lasted.
You remove it from your hard drive with gparted by deleting the Ext4 partition(s) you made, filling in that space by extending your NTFS partition and... oh $#^!.
The bootloader is broken; GRUB tries to find something which does not exist. You can't boot into Windows. You have no recovery media to fix it. Well, no worry. What you're done with can help you fix the master boot record and make your Windows session bootable again.
While recently unavailable for Debian systems due to Microsoft's meddling, you can still find older copies of ms-sys banging about on the internet, in various places. In the next section, ms-sys is provided via two mirrors for the two mainstream processor architectures in use; You can use it to replace the present Master Boot Record (MBR) with any of the ones provided via that tool.
Download mirrors
pCloud
Choose to download, not to save to pCloud account unless you already have an account to pCloud
ms-sys 2.4.2-0 32-bit
ms-sys 2.4.2-0 64-bit
Dropbox
Dropbox may request registration for those without an account; click on the bottom No thanks, continue to view and proceed with download.
ms-sys 2.4.2-0 32-bit
ms-sys 2.4.2-0 64-bit
Installing and using ms-sys
They are converted with Alien from RPM files. They have been tested on their respective architectures from live session to ensure they work.
Repairing Windows' MBR
If the problem is only the MBR, here's what you need to do to replace it and fix the media WIndows is on:
- Install one of the two Debian files above in your live session, per the architecture of the system
- Do
man ms-systo read what MBR you need - Apply the MBR you want using the example command the
ms-sysmanual gave you, to the affected drive with Microsoft Windows- All versions of Windows 7, 8 and 10 can use the Windows 7 MBR
- Reboot and see if that fixed your problem
If successful, your previous operating system's bootloader should be usable again, due to the MBR GRUB uses being superseded. Else, below are instructions on using GParted to make a new installation media for Windows.
Making a new Windows installation media (for USB)
If you need to format Windows and start fresh instead, you can perform the following;
- Do
gksu gpartedand on a 4GB or higher USB media - write an MS-DOS partition table to your desired device (if necessary)
- Write an NTFS partition onto it (if necessary)
- Right-click on the partition, then enable the boot flag so you can boot into the drive later
- Use
ms-systo write the MBR relative to the installation media for that USB stick (see above for installing and using it) - Download (if applicable) and unpack with
engrampathe ISO for your version of Windows to the USB media
If all went well, you'll have a bootable Windows installer you can use to format and give yourself a fresh start, should something happened where fixing the MBR isn't enough.
Else...
You could try Ubuntu MATE again, since after all, you're managing to make your Windows install accessible with a Linux system. That should show you how superior and less crippled in core function Ubuntu MATE, or any Linux distribution is compared to Windows.