Broken boot loader after loading Ubuntua linux

Hi everyone, I loaded the latest version of Ubuntu on my Windows 10 desktop. It dual booted and I was able to start windows through the grub loader. The Ubuntu didn't work well at all and, despite freeing up a large partition, it seems to have re-partitioned my c drive. I've done lots of research and managed to delete grub but now I can't load either Ubuntu or Windows 10. I have run a Windows repair disc from another machine and can access drives etc but nothing I have tried has worked. I'd be very grateful indeed for any help/advice to get windows 10 booting again. Subsequently, any advice on how to correctly identify and delete the Ubuntu partitions would also be be gratefully received.

Many thanks in advance for your help.

Kind regards,

Mark

If there's no important data on the system just start over. Install windows and let it partition the way it wants (best if it's on it's own drive). If you only have a single drive then during the windows install make a 120GB windows OS partition (or what ever size you need), and leave the rest for Linux. Once you're finished and windows seems happy start the linux install. I recommend doing a manual partition scheme in linux but that's an old hold over, but seriously create a home partition for all your data. Everything else can be in a single root partition or LVM. I've done all my systems following that method and have rarely run into issues.

In the distant past, I installed a dual boot Linux distribution that worked really well, unlike this one. I had several machines with only Linux on and they were fine of course.

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Unfortunately, there is stuff on there that I want to keep and I can't find my installation disc with the unlock key...

Reptilian said:

In the distant past, I installed a dual boot Linux distribution that worked really well, unlike this one. I had several machines with only Linux on and they were fine of course.

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Unfortunately, there is stuff on there that I want to keep and I can't find my installation disc with the unlock key...

I'm guessing that's the bitlocker key. You might be able to get that data in recovery mode by booting from a windows USB drive. I've never bothered with bitlocker but I would think if you have a TPM module the key should be stored in there.

Not sure what bitlocker is. I'm just referring to the key that's used to install the os and prove that you bought a legit copy.

Reptilian said:

Not sure what bitlocker is. I'm just referring to the key that's used to install the os and prove that you bought a legit copy.

Oh then yea you can get your data from recovery mode (the windows OS key isn't needed for anything aside from activation). Might be a bit of a pain doing that in a cmd promt. You could also use a live linux USB drive to transfer all your data to an external drive which would be easier. Then start from scratch with the dual install.

Sounds like an enormous amount of work/time and I'll have to buy a new key install windows 10 again.

I was hoping there would be a command line trick to install a new bootloader and get my existing installation working?

Reptilian said:

Sounds like an enormous amount of work/time and I'll have to buy a new key install windows 10 again.

I was hoping there would be a command line trick to install a new bootloader and get my existing installation working?

You can try reinstalling Linux again and allow grub to handle the booting. If you just want to bail on Linux then you're gonna need to use bcdedit from windows recovery mode. I've only had to do that once or twice so I'm not able to type that out but there's a ton of tutorials out there for doing that. I'm sure the forums have a thread for that somewhere.

Sounds like a good idea. I'll see what I can find out about bcdedit.

Thanks.