How do I remove Ubuntu 12.04 LTS from my Windows 7 computer?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How do I remove ubuntu from a windows 7 machine without the recovery disk?

I have a problem. I want my Windows 7 back. I installed ubuntu from a USB flash-drive. And it's dualbooting with Windows 7.

I don't know how to delete Ubuntu 12.04 LTS from my computer for free?

Please help me......

Solution 1

You need: A Windows Installation or Recovery Medium

This restores the MasterBootRecord. Grub will be gone (or at least not useable anymore) only Windows boots up.

• boot from that Windows Disk
• select "Repair my Computer"
• select your Windows Installation
• select "Command Prompt"

• now execute following command each at a time:

  bootrec.exe /FixBoot

  bootrec.exe /FixMbr

• reboot

To remove ubuntu (this steps may be a bit fuzzy, since I do not have win7 machine right in front of me right now):

• Boot to Windows
• click "start" and search for "Disk Management"
• start Disk Management
• now you should see an overview of your Harddrives and partitions.
• determine the ubuntu partitions (usually, the ones with "unknown" file system)
• delete those partitions
• finally append the freed disk space to a windows partition (if wished)

you should be good now.

Good Luck.

Solution 2

To allow your computer to boot normally rather than returning to the GRUB menu, follow this: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/33433/restore-the-windows-boot-loader-after-an-ubuntu-update/

In short: insert Windows installation disk, select language and use the repair feature using a system image that you created earlier. The link provides more details + images. Any time that I have done this it has automatically fixed the Windows bootloader. However, it does have the manual fix for it, if necessary.

Get something to edit partitions, I just use GParted. Delete all of the Linux partitions. The ext3/ext4, swap, etc. and leave NTFS partitions for Windows. It may show "unknown" partitions instead of ext/swap partitions if you are doing this from Windows.

If you installed Ubuntu from a flash drive and set it to dual boot, you must have selected it from the menu while installing. Fortunately, deleting it is pretty easy. It's mostly just right click -> delete work from GParted.

Note: You will need to put GParted on your USB or burn it to a CD to edit it since you can't delete a partition that you're working on.

Optionally, you can try "Parted Magic" which is for both Windows and Linux, this way you will not need to use your USB or CD. Just install it to Windows. I've never used this program but I have heard good things about it and it should be relatively simple to using GParted.

Solution 3

I assume you install Ubuntu using Wubi, which installs Ubuntu on your Windows 7. To uninstall it, go to Remove/Uninstall Programs in Control Panel, select Ubuntu and click Uninstall.

Solution 4

You can use a little tool called OS-Uninstaller: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OS-Uninstaller

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Comments

[Javier Rivera]

Downvote: This will make his computer unbootable. Grub can't boot if it can't access to the Ubuntu partition. At least you should give him instructions to reinstall the Windows boot loader.

[Enigmatic]

Ah, right. Sometimes I assume things go without say when I miss so many hours of sleep. :/ Anyways, I updated details and included link so someone didn't miss that step and think they messed up their Windows partition or something. Thanks for reminding me.