I really got myself into a position this time.

They finally got the MCP89 kernel patch finalized and released as a Ubuntu DVD in the daily build of Lucid Lynx (good job!). I tried it, but even after following Ubuntu's Wiki-guide to fix various problems, a lot of my Mac's functionality broke and I don't want to take up that battle yet (of trying to get everything to work perfectly {I'm a perfectionist}).

So I want to remove Ubuntu and GRUB2 from my system. But even with some experience with problems like these, I'm in the ultimate pickle. OS X uses the GUID Partition scheme and EFI, whilst bootcamp has a BIOS/MBR emulator to run Windows. I installed the GRUB bootloader to the MBR (I think {In "/dev/sda" during the install}). I use rEFIt to chainload into GRUB2 to boot Ubuntu, and I want to remove that icon, return to booting Windows 7 using it's own bootloader, and restore the GB's that Ubuntu took back to the Windows 7 partition.

I'm lost and (for the first time in a while) WAY over my head. I have no experience with EFI/GUID. (I just got my first Mac a month ago)

Please help me!

If you use efi to chainload Grub2 then you can't tell Grub2 to remove itself from efi. You should tell the efi.

I suspect your efi uses the gpt partitions. Both Grub1 and Grub2 can boot GUID partitions donkey years ago with or without efi.

Your task of removing Grub2 lies with telling the boot manager currently controlling the MBR. It is not clear if it is Grub2 from your description.

Even if Grub2 is controlling the MBR it can only be removed by being overwritten by another boot loader selected by you.

As for Ubuntu you can just delete its partition and use the hard disk space for other purpose.

rEFIt, alongside Apple default is what chainloads grub2.

Attachment of a snapshot of an error I get with rEFIt's Partitioning Tool.

http://refit.sourceforge.net/

Please Help!

Attached Images

photo.jpg (172.6 KB, 16 views)

AFAIK efi or rEFIt in Mac is a hardware dependent system for using with gpt disks. It is needed by the operating systems with poorly engineered boot loaders having limited capabilities. None of the MS Windows with their current boot loaders can be booted from a gpt disk without the use of efi and only their 64-bit versions have that capacity too.

Grub2 does not need efi to boot partitions in a gpt disk and I have used Grub2 to boot the 128th partition of a 2TB disk in just an ordinary PC.

The efi is a hardware feature in a motherboard and your rEFIt should be the software to manage it. If rEFIt (First boot loader) has been chainloading Grub2 (Second boot loader) then you can only remove the second boot loader by configure first boot loader rEFIt.

You could choose to nuke Ubuntu, use its hard disk space for a different purpose so that Grub2 is broken and unbootable. That will be the minimum work.

But I want to get rid of the icon and GRUB bootloader as well. Like, actually gone.
And because Windows is a legacy OS, not properly erasing GRUB will result in not being able to load Windows 7 either.
I want to keep Mac OS X and Windows 7 untouched.

I don't know how to uninstall GRUB without a Windows repair disk (Win7 install disk won't let me repair, says that it can't recognize the partition {but I can still boot into and use Windows [Microsoft, that's idiotic BTW]}), but still be able to boot into Windows.

Another key problem here is that I can't use Super GRUB to fall back to Windows 7 because the MCP89 kernel patch is so new that very few, extremely bleeding edge 'daily builds' only have the patch thus far.

I have no idea how to correctly configure rEFIt to remove GRUB. I need GRUB to be removed because I won't have any need for it, and it adds another thing to click before Windows boots. Besides, if I erase Ubuntu to get those valuable GiB's back, then I can't boot Windows anymore.

So in recap, I need to:

A) Remove GRUB from my system, making sure that Windows 7 is untouched.

B) Resynchronize the GPT with the MBR.

C) Remove the icon from rEFIt so it looks nice again.

Please help. Thanks in advance guys.

Well, right now I'm using GParted on the Ubuntu Live CD to nuke Ubuntu and resize my NTFS partition. It's taking forever moving NTFS to the left. Arg.

I removed Ubuntu, and now I can't boot Windows 7.

I figured it out.

I nuked Ubuntu first, booted a Live CD and cleared the MBR, then had the Windows install disk fix it.

Strangely, the Windows install disc wouldn't fix the MBR until Ubuntu was completely off the system.

I saw on the Bug report that someone had a lot of success with OpenSUSE, and I'm going to give it a go.

EDIT: All I had to do to synchronize the GPT with the MBR is boot Mac OS X and open Disk Utility, let it gather disk information and voila, all is synced.

Flavor-blasted Goldfish are really good.

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