I recently unplugged my desktop, when I plugged it back, apparently my CMOS was cleared and BIOS reset to default settings. After changing boot order back, now every time I turn on my PC I see the GNU GRUB interface. Typing exit exits GRUB and boots Windows 10.
Did the BIOS forget my Windows boot sector? How can I fix this to boot to Windows by default?
22 Answers
Startup Repair will reinstall the Windows bootloader and reinstall direct Windows boot. If Linux is still installed, its boot will be lost (if you don't want Linux, check if its disk partition is still allocated.)
The articleHow to Run a Startup Repair in Windows 10explains all the details with screenshots.
In short:
Select Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Repair
Enter an administrator user-name and password
Press Continue.
I had the exact same issue after uninstalling Ubuntu. To fix it I checked UEFI settings and everything looked good, then tried the first 4 steps in this article but none of them worked.
What finally worked was to create a system backup, reset my PC, and then restore my system from the backup. Now everything works like a charm.
The exact steps taken to fix were:
- Go to control panel > Backup and Restore (Windows 7)
- Create a backup saved to an external hard drive
- Go into settings and search for "Recovery"
- Reset your PC (I opted to clean all drives and download a fresh install for windows 11)
It might take a while to finish this process but after it's done you can go through the setup wizard in order to get to settings > Recovery > Advanced start up > Restart now.
Make sure the external hard drive is plugged in and from the "Advanced start up" options:
Select Troubleshooting > Advanced Options > Restore from system image (if you don't see "Restore from system image" then just click the "more options" link and it should be there)
Go through the steps using the image on your hard drive to restore the system
And hey presto, everything worked perfectly thereafter, all my apps, settings, and files were back in place, and have had no issues since.
Hopefully, this is overkill for most and your issue gets resolved by using Startup repair as suggested in @harrymc's answer but this should always fix the issue, plus it's a good way to test that your backup is working.
Note: You should be able to do generally the same thing if you are using windows 10 but the steps will differ so would recommend doing some research on how best to go about it but the general concept is: Create system backup > Reset PC > Restore from system backup.
