How Can I Make the Fedora GRUB Menu Appear Again After Removing Ubuntu?
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MellowPine47
I had Ubuntu and Fedora installed in a UEFI dual-boot setup. I removed Ubuntu with GParted from a live USB and expanded Fedora into the freed space. Fedora still boots normally, but the GRUB menu no longer appears during startup. I checked the EFI system partition and it still contains Fedora's boot files, and `efibootmgr` shows Fedora's shim as the active boot entry. The EFI partition is mounted at `/boot/efi`, with Fedora's files under `/boot/efi/EFI/fedora` and fallback files under `/boot/efi/EFI/BOOT`. I also regenerated the GRUB configuration. How can I restore the visible GRUB menu?
Answers
Your EFI partition does not appear to have been deleted. The disk layout shows a 600 MB FAT32 EFI partition, and the firmware is launching Fedora's `shim.efi`, so the bootloader itself is probably fine. Fedora commonly hides the GRUB menu when it detects only one operating system. Check `/etc/default/grub` and set the menu to display, for example: `GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu` and `GRUB_TIMEOUT=5`. Then regenerate the configuration with `sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /etc/grub2.cfg` and reboot. On some Fedora installations the configuration path may instead be `/boot/grub2/grub.cfg`.
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The files in `/boot/loader/entries` show that Fedora still has valid kernel boot entries, and the fallback EFI files are present. That points more toward a hidden or nearly instant menu than a missing bootloader. You can also check whether Fedora is using GRUB's hidden-menu settings with `sudo grub2-editenv list`; if it reports a saved menu state, removing or resetting that state and rebuilding the configuration may help. Avoid deleting the EFI partition—your existing one is needed to start Fedora.
LunarButton3: If the menu still never appears after changing the timeout, enter the firmware boot settings and confirm that the Fedora entry is first. Also disable any firmware fast-boot option temporarily, since it can make the key window for showing the menu extremely short.
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QuietCedar21: The `efibootmgr` output also shows a one-second timeout, which makes the menu easy to miss. Hold Shift during a legacy-style boot or repeatedly press Esc immediately after powering on if you need to reveal it while testing.