Windows 10: UEFI boot -- get rid of loads of OS'es (about 7) on boot menu

Upgrading macOS destroys Windows boot too if you dual boot using EFI. It will wipe it or any other boot manager from the list. They both (Windows and macOS) like to make themselves the top dog. Linux is well behaved in that regard - I find it well behaved *Smile

 

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

:)

 

How Should I Update To Win 10 from Win 7 when I still need Win 7?

Boot the stick using the
BIOS Boot Menu Key as a UEFI device if you have UEFI BIOS which you obviously do with those settings.

Since all UEFI firmware settings are slightly different, you may need to change Boot List Option to UEFI to get the UEFI flash stick choice when you use the BIOS Boot menu key.

The Boot Priority order should always have the WIndows Boot Manager first for a UEFI install, which is why we use the BIOS Boot menu key to trigger the UEFI flash stick choice. Otherwise it will start the install over again when the install restarts.

If in doubt about any of the UEFI Firmware settings, post back the choices. Pictures can help.

 

Error using USB bootable Windows 10 ISO

When you use a USB drive for you media it needs to be formatted as FAT32 for UEFI. Then when you boot you may need to use some type of Boot Device Menu to select the UEFI version.

A UEFI system will normally boot from the Windows Boot Manger on an installed system. But if you put the correct DVD it should have booted after showing a message to tap a key to boot the DVD. Make sure the DVD is loaded
before you start the boot. The media is read early in the boot process and won't pick it up if not installed prior.

When you get the GPT message, you are correct in saying the install/recovery media had been booted as Legacy. Something about you media or Bios settings are not correct.

 

@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

 

Do the entries say something like "UEFI OS on partition x, and so on?

 

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

 

I know if I take something like Kyhi's Rescue PE, create a patition, copy it to that partition, then remove the drive letter, it shows up just like I mentioned. Might want to use something like MiniTool to look at the boot drive (physical hdd/ssd) for unlettered partitions and Explore with MiniTool. Might give you some clues. Then just zap them.

 

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.

 

Yes, that is where the extra stuff will be.

 

Open Admin Command Prompt. Copy and paste to run. This should rebuild everything and eliminate all the junk:
mountvol U: /s
del /s /f /q U:\efi\*.*
bcdboot c:\windows /s U: /f UEFI
mountvol U: /d

Shutdown and Reboot

 

This is terrible advice.

Firstly it will delete Grub which the OP is using. It isn't clear is he is using EFI stub for booting but either way deleting everything is excessive and would certainly result in him being unable to boot any of his other OS as you would delete /EFI/Grub which is where the Grub 2 loader is or EFI/Ubuntu or whatever if he is booting that way.

Secondly it will not reset NVRAM (all bcdboot does it sticks windows loader at the top of the list). All other entries remain. You can easily check this from EFI shell.

This set of commands should only be recommended if you only ran Windows which @jimbo45 certainly doesn't.

 

What's so terrible about it ?. If you read his original post #1. No where that he refers to GRUB except when he select one of the non existent OS listed then he gets a GRUB menu. He even thinks about formatting the Boot partition and re-install Windows so he'd get a clean Boot partition.

Using the commands above will rebuild everything from scratch. And if he wants dual boot then use bcdboot.

 

No they will not. They will not reset your NVRAM entries.

Honestly - try it and look.

I spend almost two weeks recently trying to dual boot Arch Linux (64 bit) and Windows (64 bit) from an old PC with 32 bit EFI. I could make Windows work (going through 32 bit grub.efi) but Linux refused to work (because of display drivers and "nomodeset" not working in kernels since about the year 2000). I failed in the end and could only run Linux without X (so no GUI) as my PC was too old.

What was interesting though is every single time I installed Windows it stuck it's boot manager first. It doesn't even shuffle the rest lower - bcdboot just replaces the first entry.

Basically it just runs this bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi which does not add it to the top it just replaces what is at the top.

If you look at the entries (I only used EFI shell bcfg boot dump and bcfg boot add 0 fs0:\EFI\Boot\Whatever.efi but perhaps you can see it in Windows too idk)

I didn't mean your advice was terrible in general - just for the OP (and anyone else) who never stop banging on about booting Linux 'cos it would break it. Depending on your EFI implementation it might be worth deleting some entries from NVRAM as well as extraneous junk from your ESP. They may also want to keep some stuff in the ESP if they are using it.