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I somehow installed Grub on my USB drive, now Windows/Ubuntu won't boot unless my USB drive is connected. How do I move the MBR to my laptop - internal HDD?

Acer 64; Windows 8; Ubuntu 14.xx

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  • It depends on a number if issues. First, many BIOS allow which OS to boot. 32 or 64 bit ? EFI ? If your BIOS does not allow you to select which OS to boot, reinstall grub to the hard drive. You can do this manually or with boot-repair.
    – Panther
    Jan 19, 2015 at 22:17

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Test this:

Boot your pc from the HD.

Extract the usb drive.

Open a terminal. CtrlAltT.

Run it:

sudo -i
apt-get update
apt-get install reinstall grub-pc grub-pc-bin grub-common
grub-install /dev/sda
grub-install --recheck /dev/sda
update-grub
reboot

This procedure is for non-UEFI bios.

For UEFI procedure is:

sudo -i
apt-get update
apt-get install reinstall grub-efi
grub-install /dev/sda
grub-install --recheck /dev/sda
update-grub
reboot
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  • Thanks for your quick reply. 2 q's, if you please: 1- I can't figure out which bios (UEFI non-UEFI) I have- do tell. 2- I'm a bit scared to mess with grub, and was wondering if you knew the risks of my computer not booting after this procedure. Thanks again.
    – skeptic
    Jan 19, 2015 at 23:17
  • Load gparted. Check the partition table of the hard drive. If it is GPT and has a Efi partition as first partition is UEFI. If the partition tables is MSDOS, has MBR.
    – kyodake
    Jan 19, 2015 at 23:46
  • Partition table is MSDOS. But, gparted reports : (gpartedbin:3020): GLib-CRITICAL **: Source ID 7 was not found when attempting to remove it when it starts; there is an exclamation point after /dev/sda1/; and when I unplug the external hdd- after booting, Ubuntu stops working. Here is a screen shot: ![anonimg.com/img/deae64e57a418631243b0d317a8d567e.png] Thanks.
    – skeptic
    Jan 20, 2015 at 3:10
  • ![anonimg.com/uploaded-deae64e57a418631243b0d317a8d567e.png.html]
    – skeptic
    Jan 20, 2015 at 3:16

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