Problem:
I installed ubuntu linux gutsy on my external harddrive and now my computer needs the external harddrive to start up every time, even though I have windows on the internal harddrives.

Basically without my external hard drive connected I get a error 21 (no operating system detected) even though windows is on my internal drives.

Question:
Is there a way to uninstall ubuntu linux fully from the external hard drive and remove it from my boot list? If theres a way to boot the computer straight to windows when the external hard drive is disconnected thatd be cool too.

Information:
My motherboard is: GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L from http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16813128059

My external Hard Drive is: My Book Essential Edition 2.0
It is formatted as a EXfat.

Why I want to do this:

I need to take this computer to a public places and do not wish to have my external hard stolen. Also I'd like to be able to access the external hard drive without having linux boot up to use it.

Try changing your boot order to boot to your internal drive:


1. Open a terminal
2. use root

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst


and change the order of the entries at the bottom of the file. The topmost entry is the default boot.

whats root?

If you are installing Linux on external hard drives, its probably best to install the boot loader on the MBR of the external hard drive instead of the MBR of the internal hard drive. You can do this by booting into Ubuntu and doing something like
Replace /dev/sdX with the device name of your external hard drive. You can then setup your BIOS to boot from CD, USB and Hard drive. This way, if the USB disk is found, the system boots Ubuntu and if its not found, the system boots Windows. After that download SuperGrub disk, disconnect the external hd, boot using the SuperGrub disk and choose the option to remove grub from the MBR of the internal drive. This will enable you to boot into Windows without the external hd being connected.

does SuperGrub disk have to be installed in linux to use or can it be used in vista?

also the page you gave me wont load :-(

SuperGrub disk is a rescue cd, so you have to burn the iso to a cd (burn the iso as a cd image) and place it in your cd drive and reboot the machine. It will start a live Linux system that you can use to do various things to your bootloader e.g. reinstall grub or remove it from the MBR.

ya, but the download site still isnt working :-(

If you have completely removed Linux and just wish to run Windows on your machine, you need to rewrite the Master Boot Record of your hard drive to get rid of the Linux boot loader.

http://amazingrando.wordpress.com/20...s-your-friend/

Thanks you very much! I'm going to go try this now.

I now need to figure out how to uninstall linux from the ext hard drive... lol

All you need to do is remove the Linux partition(s) on the device.

thats the problem, my whole external hard drive is EXfat so windows does not see it to be able to redo the partitioning. Would the windows cd be able to fix this also??

Something like Parted Magic may help.

I thought Windows could see the partitions, just didn't recognise their filesystem type. That's what I remember the last time I used Windows' disk management tool. Anyway, you should be able to boot from your Ubuntu CD and use fdisk or cfdisk to remove the partitions.