Safely remove an OS from dual boot

Question

How can i safely remove a linux os from a dual booting laptop? Do i create a bootable gparted disk and just format that particular partition with the unwanted os on it and change it into something else(e.g. ext2 or swap or something like that?) I want to make sure it's cleanly removed and won't mess up my partition table.

Answer 1

It is as tricky as making it dual boot. If you did not go through too much hassle while installing it and have kept two OSes in different file systems then all you to do is remove OS entry from GRUB and then see if you can safely delete the partition on which that OS reside.

Answer 2

Keep Windows and Remove Linux:

• Head to the Start menu (or Start screen) and search for "Disk Management." Open up the Disk Management tool.

• Find your Linux partition. It won't be labeled since Windows doesn't understand the Linux file system, so you'll need to figure out which one it is by size and where it is on your hard drive. Make sure you have the right one before continuing!

• Right-click on the partition and choose "Delete Volume." This will delete the partition from your hard drive, leaving free space. If you get a green box of "free space," you'll have to right-click on it and choose "Delete Volume" a second time until you get the black "Unallocated Space."

• Right-click on your Windows partition and choose "Extend Volume." Extend it to fill the free space your Linux partition left behind.

• Lastly, insert your Windows recovery disc (or recovery USB drive) and boot from it. Choose "Repair Your Computer," go to "Troubleshoot," and then enter a Command Prompt. Type the following command:

  bootrec.exe /fixmbr

  This will remove Linux's bootloader and replace it with Windows'. Reboot your computer and you should find that it boots directly into Windows, with no Linux partition to be found.

Reference here

Also for pictorial guide refer here

Answer 3

I saw many tutorials on the web which mostly asked to delete the partition after logging into Windows but almost all the times, it led to my system crashing, showing grub failures and entering into recovery mode which took too much time to recover. ( like this : https://forum.manjaro.org/t/tried-to-remove-manjaro-by-formatting-partition-now-stuck-on-grub-rescue/140482)

After so long I found the perfect way to remove (atleast) Ubuntu (and Manjaro) from dual boot when it is done with Windows and I have done it many times on many devices and it has never given me any problem yet.

1. Find the boot menu number of the distribution using sudo efibootmgr

2. Remove the boot menu option (to prevent logging in issues to a corrupted distro ) sudo efibootmgr -b <bootnum> -B

3. Remove the EFI boot file (since you do not need to boot into the distro again and keeping it might cause issues later) sudo rm -rf /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu

4. Reboot and you'll directly login to your windows without seeing the grub menu

5. Remove the partition that you initially made for Ubuntu from windows partition manager

NOTE : Backup all your files before removing the boot entry since you won't be able to login to your distro after removing the entry and rebooting.