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Restore the Windows bootloader to

MBR after dual-booting with Linux
on March 10, 2012

If you are reading this, you have likely attempted or

More in Tutorials/Tips:

actually set up a dual-boot system between your

favorite Linux distribution and Windows. And if you
did that on a computer with a single hard drive, that
is, dual-booting Windows and Linux alongside each

Running Node.js on
Linux with systemd

other, you probably replaced the Windows boot

July 11, 2016

Master Boot Record (MBR).

loader with GRUB, the Linux boot loader, in the

Though that is not what I recommend, many still

prefer it that way, even as I have written in many of
Five Reasons to Switch
to Software for Load
Balancing

my dual-boot tutorials that Windows will, during a reinstall, overwrite anything it nds in the
MBR, and that some anti-virus programs tend to write small les to the MBR, messing up
GRUB.

July 11, 2016

For the record, my recommendation is to install the Linux boot loader, not in the MBR, but in
the Linux installations boot partition, or the main partition, if /boot is not on a separate
partition. This gives the Windows boot manager the main responsibility of presenting what

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operating system to boot into during a restart or reboot.

That way, if you have to reinstall Windows, you will not lose access to the Linux side of the
dual-boot system. If you installed the Linux boot loader to the MBR and want to restore the
How to keep your Boot
EFI partition clean of
old Linux bootloader
folders
June 15, 2016

Windows boot loader, this short tutorial shows you how to do it. It is an easy, point-and-click
process. And the application that makes it that easy is called EasyBCD, a free-for-personal-use
application from Neosmart Technologies.
To download it, go here. The link to download it for free is all the way at the bottom of that
page, so scroll down and click on the Download free for limited, non-commercial use link.
After the download, install it as you would any other Windows application.
EasyBCDs main view is shown in the screen shot below. To restore Windows 7s boot loader to
the MBR, click on the BCD Deployment tab.

Once there, click on the Write MBR button. If you are running Windows XP, select the option
under MBR Conguration Options

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If successful, a message at the bottom left of the window will say just that. That was easy, right? But that also means that
you have lost GRUB. If you reboot without doing anything else, you will nd that there is no way to boot into the Linux side.
If you do not want to continue using the Linux installation, then you do not need to do any thing else from EasyBCD. You
might want to delete the Linux partitions to free up space for use by Windows.

If, however, you still want to be able to boot into the Linux installation after restoring the Windows boot manager to the
MBR, you need to add an entry for the Linux distribution in the boot managers menu. To do that, click on the Add New Entry
tab.

While there, click on the Linux/BSD tab, then select GRUB 2 from the Type dropdown menu. Modify the Name eld to
reect the name of your Linux distribution. Click the Add Entry button. Click Edit Boot Menu tab to see the new entry. Note:
Most Linux distributions use GRUB 2 as the boot loader. If yours uses GRUB Legacy, select it from the same dropdown
menu, and be sure to specify what partition it is installed into from the Device dropdown menu.

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You should see two entries. One for Windows 7, the other for the Linux distribution. You may change the boot order. If you
are satised with this operation, exit EasyBCD and reboot the computer.

You should see the Windows boot menu that you saw on the rst page of this article. This last image was taken from a
tutorial written for Chakra. You may read it at How to dual-boot Windows 7 and Chakra Linux Archimedes, with shared
NTFS partition at the end.

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Bonus Info What do you do, if after setting up a dual-boot system between Windows and Linux you decide that you no
longer what to use Linux? Easy! Delete the Linux partitions. How?
Boot into Windows and start the partition manager (type partition into the menus search eld and click on the result).
This screen shot is from a test installation I did. The Linux partitions are indicated in red.

To delete them, right-click on each and select Delete Volume from the context menu. That is all you need to do.

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What if you decide, after playing with Linux for a while, that you like it better than Windows, and want to get rid of
Windows? Well, because Windows is sitting at the front part of the hard drive, the best solution is to reinstall your Linux
distribution, completely wiping both Windows and the original instance of the Linux distribution from the drive. Before
doing it, be sure to back up your data.

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31 Comments
Wim
January 15, 2016 at 2:22 am Reply

Thanks for this one..

ed r
August 5, 2015 at 12:01 pm Reply

I tried using grub as most said to when dual booting Mint.

Ok, but it was not easy to switch back and forth etc.
By accident I created a new mbr in windows partition and that forced me to adopt your method,
which I wish I had seen earlier. Once in BCD, how easy to arrange any kind of boot order I want.
Unrealistic to drop Windows, or to forget Linux. use em both.
Thanks.

Rock
July 31, 2015 at 11:12 pm Reply

Its not working since its windows application and I have already overwritten MBR. Now I have no choice but to login to Linux.

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