I recently tried installing Ubuntu on my laptop with very little knowledge about it and now I'm in a bind. Before installing, I was using Windows, and I had no idea what dual booting was. I think my boot menu is broken because I can't find Windows listed anywhere. I'm really hoping to get back to my previous setup, as I just want to learn Linux from a simpler distribution like Mint. Can anyone guide me on how to resolve this?
5 Answers
If you selected to wipe your entire disk during the Ubuntu installation, then your Windows installation is likely gone. It's crucial to choose 'install alongside' if you intended to keep Windows. Just a heads-up, it wasn't Ubuntu itself that caused the issue; it was the choices made during the installation process.
It sounds like you might have skipped a step in your research before the installation. Luckily, if you made backups of your important files, you're in a good spot. Just remember, it wasn't Ubuntu that wrecked your Windows; it was a user error during setup.
Did you actually install Ubuntu, or just download it? It's a key distinction! If you installed it, did you choose to set it up alongside Windows, or did you replace Windows entirely? That makes a big difference. You might want to check your terminal in Ubuntu and run a couple of commands to investigate your setup. Just run `lsblk` and `lsblk -f` in the terminal and share the results with us. That will help us figure out if Windows is still there at all.
Ubuntu and Mint are pretty similar, aside from their default interfaces. If you didn't set up a dual-boot, there’s a chance that Windows was completely overwritten. If you want to install Mint directly, you could do that by downloading the Mint ISO. Then, use a program like 'Disks' to create a USB with the Mint installer. After that, boot from the USB and go through the installation process again.
You might want to check your BIOS boot menu to see if the Windows Boot Manager is showing up. If it’s not there, that might confirm that the installation process erased it when you installed Ubuntu.
I went through the installation and now I realize I should have done more research! I downloaded Ubuntu and used Rufus to create a USB installer. It only shows a terminal for me.. here’s the output from the commands:
`lsblk`
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
nvme0n1 259:0 0 476.9G 0 disk
nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 1G 0 part /boot/efi
nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 475.9G part /
`lsblk -f`
NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
NVME0N1
NVME0N1P1 vfat FAT32 EAD5-96B2 1g 1% /boot/efi
NVME0N1P2 ext4 1.0 9635575b-673b-4efe-a95d-f687c41efe2b 1g 1% /