Dealing with locked linux partitions

[zedsdeath]

Hello everyone! I'm moving the operating system on my laptop using paragon drive copy. I was dual booting ubuntu and windows 10 and I deleted the ubuntu partitions. I had more than I could remember what where they for, I deleted swap and the ubuntu regular partition but I'm left with two 1000mb partition that appear as OEM reserved and I cant delete them in the windows tools. And When I turn on the pc I stil get some GRUB screen that just allows me to use commands, When I press escape it prompts me to the boot menu to choose the windows bootloader, how do I remove the linux partition and the GRUB(im guessing the reserved partitions have the grub thing).

 

Also I copied perfectly with paragon my OS drive to the SSD and everything looks fine but the pc doesnt recognize the option to boot from the SSD. Even in the bios it knows it has an SSD because its listed but in the boot menu I just have the HDD option. I'm going to update the bios because it seems that its a little limited bios from lenovo but if you know something about this I appreciate any info or opinion!.

 

[zedsdeath]

[Wild Penquin]

Hi zedsdeath,

 

No, the partitions you have left over have nothing to do with Linux or Grub(2). I believe they are your OEM partitions, which can be used to restore your Windows installation (most likely) (EDIT: nope, see my second reply). This is a laptop you are running on? (If not, what MB?)

 

There is no way to actually "lock" a partition table / partition, save for the OS doing it - which is Windows and it's OEM settings in this case.

 

As for GRUB ... you seem to be using UEFI. Grub installation resides on the EFI partition. This is true for all boot entries / loaders on a modern computer using UEFI (for BIOS/MBR, part of GRUB would be in MBR, which needs to be removed). Just deleting partitions will not get rid of any bootloader.

 

You should be able to removed it's boot entry from your Laptops BIOS (or make Windows entry the default, and leave GRUB there just in case you need it later, it shouldn't hurt). I believe (I've heard elsewhere) that some laptops have crappy UEFI implementations which means it might be that you can not edit these entries. There will still be the GRUB binaries in the EFI partition, which should be easy to remove.

 

It should be possible to fix EFI entries also from Windows - but I have no experience, and can only direct towards a Google search.

 

It seems that just deleting "grub" or "ubuntu" folder on the EFI partition should be enough, too, to always boot into Windows. The above Google search points into that direction.

 

But it is not always that simple; if you have run something called "Ubuntu's Boot Repair" you might be in a really confusing situation. See here:  https://askubuntu.com/questions/304558/uninstalling-grub-from-uefi-laptop

 

n.b. the correct way of uninstalling is to first remove the bootloader from Linux, make sure that Windows UEFI boot is possible / active (if you could choose it beforehand from BIOS boot menu you should be good to go), boot into Windows and then remove all partitions not belonging to windows.

[Wild Penquin]

Ok, I searched for "Windows OEM partitions" and seems it could just be that Windows 10 update has been fooling around... you need to check the results yourself (I know nothing about the subject, don't use Windows - and this makes me not want to use it any more than I did ).

 

Moreover, your partition order seems to be awfully space-wasting, as the free / usable space is  fragmented. Might want to fix that somehow....

[Wild Penquin]

8 hours ago, zedsdeath said:

Also I copied perfectly with paragon my OS drive to the SSD and everything looks fine but the pc doesnt recognize the option to boot from the SSD. Even in the bios it knows it has an SSD because its listed but in the boot menu I just have the HDD option. I'm going to update the bios because it seems that its a little limited bios from lenovo but if you know something about this I appreciate any info or opinion!. 

I somehow missed that part.

 

I think a BIOS update might help. I'm not familiar with that Paragon Migrate software (needed to Google for it) and what it does, but I presuem it didn't create a right kind of boot entry in the EFI partition for the migrated Windows. Just guessing, though.

[zedsdeath]

10 hours ago, Wild Penquin said:

Ok, I searched for "Windows OEM partitions" and seems it could just be that Windows 10 update has been fooling around... you need to check the results yourself (I know nothing about the subject, don't use Windows - and this makes me not want to use it any more than I did ).

 

Moreover, your partition order seems to be awfully space-wasting, as the free / usable space is  fragmented. Might want to fix that somehow....

Yes I know its bad but It was because of all the linux stuff I had partitioned. I wouldnt use windows if I had more knowledge of linux.

 

9 hours ago, Wild Penquin said:

I somehow missed that part.

 

I think a BIOS update might help. I'm not familiar with that Paragon Migrate software (needed to Google for it) and what it does, but I presuem it didn't create a right kind of boot entry in the EFI partition for the migrated Windows. Just guessing, though.

I updated the bios but didnt help at all. I agree on the EFI boot entry but I dont know how to do it. Also I know you dont know much about windows but maybe you can help me remove this im getting when turning on the laptop

 

 

 

[wasab]

Just clean install your operating system. 

[zedsdeath]

21 minutes ago, wasab said:

Just clean install your operating system. 

I always considered that but at every person or post I asked nobody could guarantee that I wouldn't lose my windows 10 license. Do you know something about that? . I'm on the license that came with the laptop

[zedsdeath]

10 hours ago, Wild Penquin said:

Hi zedsdeath,

 

No, the partitions you have left over have nothing to do with Linux or Grub(2). I believe they are your OEM partitions, which can be used to restore your Windows installation (most likely) (EDIT: nope, see my second reply). This is a laptop you are running on? (If not, what MB?)

 

There is no way to actually "lock" a partition table / partition, save for the OS doing it - which is Windows and it's OEM settings in this case.

 

As for GRUB ... you seem to be using UEFI. Grub installation resides on the EFI partition. This is true for all boot entries / loaders on a modern computer using UEFI (for BIOS/MBR, part of GRUB would be in MBR, which needs to be removed). Just deleting partitions will not get rid of any bootloader.

 

You should be able to removed it's boot entry from your Laptops BIOS (or make Windows entry the default, and leave GRUB there just in case you need it later, it shouldn't hurt). I believe (I've heard elsewhere) that some laptops have crappy UEFI implementations which means it might be that you can not edit these entries. There will still be the GRUB binaries in the EFI partition, which should be easy to remove.

 

It should be possible to fix EFI entries also from Windows - but I have no experience, and can only direct towards a Google search.

 

It seems that just deleting "grub" or "ubuntu" folder on the EFI partition should be enough, too, to always boot into Windows. The above Google search points into that direction.

 

But it is not always that simple; if you have run something called "Ubuntu's Boot Repair" you might be in a really confusing situation. See here:  https://askubuntu.com/questions/304558/uninstalling-grub-from-uefi-laptop

 

n.b. the correct way of uninstalling is to first remove the bootloader from Linux, make sure that Windows UEFI boot is possible / active (if you could choose it beforehand from BIOS boot menu you should be good to go), boot into Windows and then remove all partitions not belonging to windows.

Somehow I didn't see this reply, maybe I clicked on the last reply and read from that to the bottom. My bad. thank you so much I really appreciate the help!

[wasab]

1 hour ago, zedsdeath said:

I always considered that but at every person or post I asked nobody could guarantee that I wouldn't lose my windows 10 license. Do you know something about that? . I'm on the license that came with the laptop

I see.... so you never clean install before... 

 

Well answering your question...

Spoiler

No

 

[Guest]

You are on EFI, you don't have to copy that OEM partition, is useless for your purpose

 

Just copy the EFI and Windows partition to the SSD, the bios should detect the Windows bootloader

 

If not, you should recover the EFI bootloader through a Windows recovery USB

[zedsdeath]

7 minutes ago, Lukyp said:

You are on EFI, you don't have to copy that OEM partition, is useless for your purpose

 

Just copy the EFI and Windows partition to the SSD, the bios should detect the Windows bootloader

 

If not, you should recover the EFI bootloader through a Windows recovery USB

the ssd has the copy of the hdd. Both have the EFI folder on windows/boot/EFI or system31/boot/efi both drives have this. what should I do?

[Wild Penquin]

If the HDDSDD you have copied Windows to is the H: drive (Disco 0) in your first screenshot, then it certainly does not have an EFI partition. EFI partition is a FAT32 (FAT16 usually works, too) partition, typically ~250Mib, but could be of different size. It is the first partition on your "Disco 1" in your screenshot.

 

I'm not sure how Windows exposes this drive (if at all; you might be able to do it from the system settings or not), but I'd suspect it would be given it's own drive letter if exposed. I think recent Windowses do support mounting into a directory, too (I've been told). But it has nothing to do with the folder names you have posted.

 

I'd do this: remove the HDD (leave the SSD, since you want to boot from it). Run Windows recovery from an USB and try to fix the installation on the SSD.

 

You could try to get support from Paragon, since their software is certainly not doing it's job.

[Wild Penquin]

9 hours ago, Lukyp said:

You are on EFI, you don't have to copy that OEM partition, is useless for your purpose

 

Just copy the EFI and Windows partition to the SSD, the bios should detect the Windows bootloader 

 

If not, you should recover the EFI bootloader through a Windows recovery USB

This advice is also sound, and if it was my computer, and I wish to move Windows to another drive, this is what I'd do. I'd do this from a Live Linux (USB) installation since that is easiest for me and I know what to do (and forget 3rd party software, EDIT: besides the Live Linux of course). I think you can not do this while booting from the Live Windows installation you want to copy the partitions from, and I have no idea if some Windows recovery tool can do these kind of tasks.

 

I believe this is what the Paragon Migrate OS software was supposed to do, but seems to made only half of the job (I'm not familiar with it, maybe it is a user error?).

[InvisibleRasta]

you can delete the ubuntu entry easily with the ubuntu live cd. boot it, and use efibootmngr