Ok. No fluff. Since you are here, I assume you installed a Linux distro to dualboot with Windows and now want to get rid of it.
Steps
All the steps mentioned here are to be followed in Windows and are same for almost every Linux distro that uses GRUB
as its bootloader.
Ensure UEFI mode
Before starting though, let’s just make sure your machine is indeed UEFI based.
- Open Run dialog — Press
Win+R
keys - Type
msinfo32
and hitEnter
- In the opened window, scroll until you see
BIOS Mode
. It should sayUEFI
.

Sample Windows Run Dialog
Remove Bootloader/GRUB
- Open 2 Powershell windows as Administrator
- Open Run dialog —
Win+R
- Type
powershell
- Press
Ctrl+Shift+Enter
- Confirm privilege escalation
- Open Run dialog —
- In the first window, launch
diskpart
- List all the disks connected to your machine with
list disk
Diskpart Screenshot 1
- Select the disk where both your operating systems are installed along with the EFI partition, with
select disk <num>
where<num>
is the number of the disk determined from the previous step - List the partitions on the disk with
list partition
- Select the EFI/System partition with
select partition <num>
- Mount the partition with
assign letter=x
and switch to the otherpowershell
windowDiskpart Screenshot 2
- Use another mount point if
x
is already in use for a drive
- Use another mount point if
- Now, change the working directory with
cd X:\
- List the directory contents with
ls
ordir
- Find a folder with a name related to your distro/GRUB.
- It might be in one of the sub-directories such as
EFI
, e.g. for Fedora, it isX:\EFI\fedora
- It might be in one of the sub-directories such as
- Delete the folder with
rd <dirname>
where<dirname>
is the name of your folder and close the window - In the the other one, unmount the
EFI
partition withremove letter=x
or use whatever mount point you set.

EFI Folder’s Contents
Reclaim Linux’s Partitions
- Open
diskmgmt.msc
with Run Dialog - Delete the partitions you created for dual boot or the ones that were automatically created by your distro
- These are generally without labels and unrecognized by Windows
- Merge back the freed unallocated space or create a new partition by right clicking it

Disk Management Screenshot
With that, we have successfully removed the Linux installation. But, not all traces of it.
Remove Boot Menu Entry
- Launch
powershell
as Administrator once again - List all the boot menu entries with:
bcdedit /enum firmware
- Find the deleted OS’ entry and copy its identifier. It should be a radom string enclosed in curly braces
Sample BCD Entry
- Export the bcd store with:
bcdedit /export newbcd
- Create a copy just for backup with:
cp newbcd bcdbackup
- Edit the exported bcd store and remove the unneccessary entry with:
bcdedit /store newbcd /delete <identifier>
<identifier>
is the identifier you copied earlier
- Import the
newbcd
back with:bcdedit /import newbcd /clean

BCD Commands
And, with that your machine no longer has any traces of dual-booting.
This is a one-stop resource that I wish I had the first time I dual booted. Other guides leave out the boot-menu part or some other random detail.