Basic question Start your journey today!
Basic question Start your journey today!
Yesterday I encountered an issue where I removed my 50GB partition intended for Linux. At that moment, I considered flipping the bootloader in the Ubuntu terminal, since the only way I got into Ubuntu was by setting up the bootloader to start GRUB via Windows CMD, which led me to the GRUB screen and allowed me to launch Linux. However, I didn’t think about doing this in the terminal before deleting the partition in Windows and restarting. After that, I messed up my EFI bootloader and lost access to Windows. I searched forums on various sites for every Boot recovery option and BCD command, but I’m worried about making similar mistakes in the future so I don’t have to reinstall Windows cleanly on my SSD. Also, the Linux partition was separate from the 1TBB HDD, meaning it wasn’t near my Windows installation, yet I still had to reinstall Windows and couldn’t fix the bootloader properly.
I just removed every other hard drive from my setup, leaving only the one I’m using for the OS installation—be it Windows, Linux, or macOS. The reason? I don’t want any installer tampering with other storage devices. This has happened before; for example, Windows Vista and 7 installers claimed they’d boot from an SSD but ended up loading the bootloader onto my HDD. Sometimes GRUB even overwrote the MBR on the wrong disk due to a numbering glitch in that Linux version. Now I’m careful—unplugging all drives except the one I trust, so I can avoid any data loss.
I followed your advice and Linux overwrote my Windows bootloader again. I disconnected all the hard drives, then installed Linux on a 250GB SSD. After installation, I reconnected everything and the GRUB menu showed up.