[BeatBoxGeorge]

I have both Ubuntu and Windows Vista... When my laptop loads, there's something called GRUB which lets me choose. Anyway I want to totally get rid of Ubuntu and GRUB. I can't seem to find anything about it on here so could anyone help??

[TerryNet]

Make the Vista partition the active (system, boot) partition if it is not already, then boot to the Vista installation DVD to repair the boot manager, make sure you can now boot to Vista, and then delete the Ubuntu (and Linux Swap) partition.

[BeatBoxGeorge]

How?

[TerryNet]

If you are asking how to do something it's good practice to mention the activity for which you are requesting help.

If there is nothing in my previous post that you know how to do I think you had better just live with what you have until you get more experienced. I'm not saying this to be mean or annoying, but I don't want to see you wrecking your system.

[BeatBoxGeorge]

Ah right okay thanks anyway

[saikee]

Boot up Vista installation DVD, select "Repair, then "Command Prompt" and type this command

bootrec /fixmbr

Reboot and you should have Vista only.

You then use Vista disk management to highlight Ubuntu partition, delete it and use the hard disk space for whatever you fancy.

[Wino]

Since this is a laptop, I doubt s/he has a OS disc and if so, probably a recovery disc or hidden partition that will erase everything and reload fresh as it came from the factory. If WUBI wasn't used to install Ubuntu, I'd say the best & safest bet is to leave well enough along if Vista is the default boot OS. Just my two cents FWIW.

[saikee]

I would probably put Grub inside Vista so that I could delete the Ubuntu.

Grub can be shortened in the "timeout" statement to boot Vista as "default" almost immediately as soon as the PC is switched on..

[BeatBoxGeorge]

Thanks guys but I still don't get it! I'll just have to take it to a computer shop or something lol. Thanks for everything though

[saikee]

The whole operation of removing Grub and put back Vista's own boot loader is by changing 512 bytes in your hard disk. It seems a waste of money to take the PC to a shop for such help.

Grub is the most powerful boot loader in the business because it is the only one that can boot an operating system "manually". There is no installed operating system Grub cannot boot. You can still keep Grub and remove the Ubuntu if you have no access to a Vista installation DVD. I had Grub booting 145 systems before and Vista was among one of them.

Grub doesn't take up space as the whole thing can be installed in a 1.4Mb floppy.

[lewmur]

Here is a link with instruction on using the Ubuntu LiveCD to fix the MBR.

http://blogs.deepal.org/2009/06/how-...u-live-cd.html

[saikee]

lewmur,

That is a good way although it cheats a bit as the OP has to download the program "ms-sys" that does the trick.

I know the role of a MS MBR only searches the 4 primaries and boots whichever one that has the booting flag switched on. In that one can write any MBR code to do the same thing, like what Freedos has done with their own version, otherwise "ms-sys" would not have been able to source the MBR from the M$ Corporation as the code should be proprietary. Think there are a few distros offer this services but I never take it seriously. Also the MS system from Dos to Xp shares the same MBR but Vista and Win7 are using a different one. Wonder how good this 'ms-sys" is.

By the way welcome to the forum.

[lewmur]

The fact that Vista and Win7 use a different bootloader does not effect the MBR. As you said, the MBR merely points to the boot sector of the active partition. Whatever bootloader is present in that partition, be it ntldr or the Vista/Win7, then takes over.

And thanks for the welcome.

edit: BTW, the fact that the MBR code is proprietary isn't relevant. Ubuntu is not using the code in its own OS. It is merely restoring the code it removed in the first place. And once that code is restored, Ubuntu will no longer boot.