3d ago

Deleting Windows from dual boot Linux/Windows computer

I have a PC currently configured to dual boot Windows 10 and Linux Mint. I don't need Windows anymore, but Mint is working just fine and I'd rather avoid wiping the whole thing and starting over. Is there a safe way to just get rid of Windows?

41 comments

Yes. You can just straight up delete the windows partition. Windows just won't boot anymore, even though doing only this won't remove it from the boot menu.
You can do this from your running linux install, but if you want to grow the linux partition to take up the free space, you'll need to do that from a live usb.
No changes should be necessary. Just delete the windows partition, and grow the linux partition.
Make sure you keep the efi partition, and swap partition, if there is one.
- Note: the growing the partition from a live USB thing is only necessary if you want it all to be one partition. If it's a separate drive, or even if it's not, you can just format the old Windows partition/drive and mount it as a new storage volume.
- I generally agree, but the best way to use the extra partition might be to keep it as a reserve to install the next Distribution release. So you go
  partition A: Ubuntu 2024.10
  Partition B: /home
  Partition C: Ubuntu 2025.04
  And swap A and C for the next upgrade. It is really nice to have a whole compatible fallback system.
  
  curious how you automatically move all the packages over
  
  Sounds like you could benefit from NixOS ;)
  
  Not seen this done manually before. Neat idea!
- You can usually grow a partition online, even the one you're booting from.
  
  Not if you need to move it first.
- You sound like you know some things that perhaps I don't know.
  Slightly different question...
  I have a 128GB SSD with Linux Mint MATE 20.3, and I did a full and successful dd backup to my 4TB backup drive.
  I have a 100GB external USB hard drive as a test medium for Mint MATE 22.1. I am happy with my test setup, and tried to dd that over to the 128GB SSD. But it wouldn't boot.
  I restored the original 128GB SSD image and all is good right now, but why the hell didn't the 100GB>128GB even boot?
  Edit: Secure Boot has been disabled all along, screw that headache.
  
  I'm not sure.
  AFAIK dd will create an IDENTICAL environment. This is actually not desirable as it will cause UUID conflicts where multiple partitions in a system have the same UUID.
  Unless you're restoring something you imaged, dding one disk onto another requires fiddling with the UUIDs and fstab, to make the partitions unique again, so the kernel can tell them apart.
You can use the gparted tool to graphically remove the partition(s) and then format them to whatever file system type you are interested in and just have those mounted as extra data drives. Or merge them into your Linux partition (depending on setup). That will require gparted to be run as sudo as you are interacting with disks.
Alternatively, you can a tool like fdisk to change partitioning in terminal. You can pull the disk info using something like lsblk, so if you had a specific drive it might be sudo fdisk /dev/nvme0n1, then you'd want to print the current table and look through the help.
Hi, I didn't see the answer if you only have your pc and no other big storage :
If you still have the installation usb or recreate one. Boot on it then you open gparted with that you remove the two partition off windows, the main with the system and the recovery one (if there is) but don't touch the first or last partition esp if it exits. Then you can expand the partitions to get the free space. Extend to the right is fast but extend to the left can be really slow and prone to failures.
I case you Linux partition are all on the right you can also create new main partition, do the install of the linux on this one, then reboot on the USB, move the user and configuration files on the new system, delete old installation partitions, then extend the new install to take the full drive.
There is commands to remove the old esp entries I don't remember yet.
This can take few hours so be patient.
The other option with a backup (dd) of the main partition is obviously safer but take nearly the same amount of time and need an external drive.
Do you have data on the Windows partition?
Either way, a good way to do it might be to use dd (or a different disk image tool) to copy your Linux installation partitions to a portable hard drive, and make sure the image works. Then wipe the drive and copy the Linux partitions back to it via dd or another imaging tool.
Some software doesn't run on Linux.
- Some software doesn't run on windows. How's that related to the op's question?
  
  Get rid of Windows, lose access to Windows only software.
- Not a problem for me. All the software I need is either available as native Linux or runs ok under Wine.
  I'm ready to ditch Windows entirely at this point. I just need to find the best way to do that, without having to rebuild the Linux side of my dual boot PC.
- Why do you try to make Linux seem unusable? It's not "Linux"'s fault proprietary software doesn't work on it. Would you criticize GNOME, KDE Plasma etc. and any of the gazillion other pieces of software exclusive to Linux for not working on W*ndows to reach a wider audience next?
- It's basically only proprietary garbage tho.
- but also, some software does

41 comments