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I have a computer running Windows 10. Because I wanted to use an Ubuntu based OS, I installed Kubuntu on an external SSD. I have a Lenovo y50-70 laptop, which has a button (next to the power button) that allows one to select which hard drive to boot without going directly to the internal hard drive. In the past I had done this and had no problems. However this time something went wrong.

If I have the hard drive connected to my computer when powering it up, I get the GRUB menu that allows me to select which OS I want to use. When I do not have it connected, I get the following message:

error: no such device: 43519df1-eaa6-4ae44-74b9d66931ff.
error: unknown filesystem.
Entering rescue mode...
grub rescue> _

What I wanted (and what I was able to do in the past) is that when I normally boot my machine (regardless if I have the hard drive connected or not) that it will boot my Windows. When I want to use Kubuntu, I need to use the special "Boot menu" (by pressing the button next to the power up button) while having the device connected.

For some reason GRUB became the default booting system and I don't know how to make the system go directly to the Windows loader. For me to enter Windows now, I need to have my SSD connected as to allow GRUB to be found. How can I fix this?


I don't think this is a duplicate of the question Is it possible to boot Ubuntu using the Windows bootloader? because this is not a normal dual-boot. My Kubuntu is installed on an external drive and during the process the Windows bootloader was replaced. Now I can't boot Windows (which is inside the laptop's hard drive) without having the external one connected. That being said, they have same similarities which could be argued to be enough for this questions to be a duplicate.

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So the answer was similar to that proposed by Romeo Ninov. I installed EasyBCD, went to the tab BCD Deployment and clicked Write MBR. All of this while not having connected my external SSD to my computer. Now it is properly working.

Here is a picture showing what I did:

EasyBCD window

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  • Since an older BIOS/MBR system, you just needed to use Something Else install option and install grub to external drive. Then you would not have overwritten the Windows MBR in the internal drive. Then set BIOS to default boot external. If not plugged in, then BIOS will go to second choice & boot internal. With grub in the Internal drive you had to have external drive to boot at all. You also could have used Boot-Repair to install new BIOS boot loaders to each drive.
    – oldfred
    Apr 14, 2019 at 14:55

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