UEFI boot -- get rid of loads of OS'es (about 7) on boot menu

Hi there

On a UEFI bootable computer (not secure boot) I've got a menu of about 7 different OS'es when I enter the BIOS boot setup because I've tried installing and testing all sorts of OS'es at various times.

Most of these OS'es aren't on my system any more.
Is there a way to clean these off -- a bit like the old FIXMBR on non UEFI boot systems.

Should I just refresh / re-format the boot HDD and then re-install windows or is the boot stuff in the actual computer's bios chip - in which case do I need to flash it.

Cheers
jimbo

f14tomcat said:

@jimbo45
Jimbo... try msconfig. Highlight each, delete, apply, OK, exit without restart until the last one, which you would do an Exit with restart.

Hi there

@f14tomcat

It only sees the Windows stuff Windows 10

on F11 (BIOS enter boot menu on system re-start after power off) I see about 7 OS'es usually in the wrong order .

Can't show that image as I can't capture the screen on startup - and I can't be bothered with phone camera - still don't know how to use those !!!

Here's though what Msconfig shows



I think the answer might be to remove all the HDD's and then enter boot and see what the BIOS shows -- although where it stores this stuff I haven't a clue.

Cheers
jimbo

Hi there
the only clue is if I try and select one of the OS'es I've removed I get a GRUB 2 line with enter parameters or something like that -- so I might have on HDD some type of hidden /efi/boot partition.

Investigating further

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
the only clue is if I try and select one of the OS'es I've removed I get a GRUB 2 line with enter parameters or something like that -- so I might have on HDD some type of hidden /efi/boot partition.

Investigating further

Cheers
jimbo

Perhaps (depending where you see these entries) you might want to delete them from your NVRAM which holds previous OS you booted, what order the EFI should check them etc. My EFI systems (which are Apple who do a pretty non-compliant UEFI implementations) doesn't show non-existing boot loaders even if they are in NVRAM list but yours might.

You can use bcfg from EFI shell (which I've used) or there are some other options I've not used namely efibootmbr (Linux) or EasyUEFI (Windows) which according to this post will let you delete redundant NVRAM boot entries.

You can also delete old stuff from EFI partition. That will probably be mounted at /boot or /boot/efi or if you want to do it from Windows mountvol S: /S and you'll see it mounted a S drive. Windows seems to like to have both "/EFI/Boot" and "/EFI/Microsoft" subdirectories and the rest should be obvious.

You can also delete old stuff from EFI partition. That will probably be mounted at /boot or /boot/efi or if you want to do it from Windows mountvol S: /S and you'll see it mounted a S drive. Windows seems to like to have both "/EFI/Boot" and "/EFI/Microsoft" subdirectories and the rest should be obvious.

Yes, that is where the extra stuff will be.