Dell Precision 3541 boots to Grub prompt

Ed McCauley · 2026-07-13T00:37:35-0400

How do I get rid of Grub and boot to windows?

I booted into the BIOS and went to Boot Sequence. I unchecked Ubuntu and left "UEFI: WDC PC SN730... Partition 1" checked. I reordered the Boot Sequence placing UEFI first. Under "View Boot Option" I have "Boot Option Name"
UEFI WDC PC SN730 SDBQNTY-1T00-1001 Partition 1" which is what I want.
I clicked Apply, and Exit to Reboot.

It still Boots into GNU Grub 2.06 with a Grub Prompt. When I Reboot using F2 the Boot Sequence has changed back to Ubuntu first! I discovered I could actually Delete the Ubuntu Option. Once again, I clicked Apply and Exit to Reboot.

Once again it rebooted to the Grub Prompt. Checking the BIOS, the Ubuntu option had returned, was checked and number 1 in the Boot Sequence...

XxXxX · 2026-07-13T02:51:30-0400

i am assuming you are dual booting.
you will have to change the boot entry within the grub.conf file
boot into Ubuntu and please follow these instructions

How to Change Grub Boot Order and Make Windows Default? – Its Linux FOSS

To change the boot order and make the Windows default, run the command “sudo nano /etc/default/grub” and change the value of GRUB_DFAULT.

itslinuxfoss.com

if you are not dual booting
then you will have to remove the Ubuntu boot files from the EFI/BOOT partition

How to remove Ubuntu from EFI partition

I installed Ubuntu on an external HDD without adding EFI partition on the HDD. So during installation it added Ubuntu to the existing EFI partition on my laptop and now it is always showed in boot ...

askubuntu.com

best of luck Steve ..

Megahertz · 2026-07-13T09:59:55-0400

So you have or had Win 11 and Linux as dual boot.
Were they on same drive?
Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
bcdedit

Post the CMD image here

Please post a whole window Disk Manager image of ALL your drives. Don't forget to expand the columns so we can read them. How to Post a Screenshot of Disk Management
If you have a MiniTool or AOMEI Partition use it instead or Windows disk manager.

Ed McCauley · 2026-07-13T11:21:53-0400

XxXxX said:
i am assuming you are dual booting.
you will have to change the boot entry within the grub.conf file
boot into Ubuntu and please follow these instructions

How to Change Grub Boot Order and Make Windows Default? – Its Linux FOSS

To change the boot order and make the Windows default, run the command “sudo nano /etc/default/grub” and change the value of GRUB_DFAULT.

itslinuxfoss.com

if you are not dual booting
then you will have to remove the Ubuntu boot files from the EFI/BOOT partition

How to remove Ubuntu from EFI partition

I installed Ubuntu on an external HDD without adding EFI partition on the HDD. So during installation it added Ubuntu to the existing EFI partition on my laptop and now it is always showed in boot ...

askubuntu.com

best of luck Steve ..

Thanks, Steve.
This is all way over my head. I know nothing at all about Linux.

This computer had a dual boot config with windows 11 and Linux. I wanted to replace the original SSD drive with a larger one without losing everything installed on the disk. I cloned the original drive, then replaced the original with the new SSD. Regardless of what I do in the BIOS, I end with "grub> _" on the screen.

One of the procedures mentioned in your links uses the cmd "ls". Just to be sure I'm in Linux as I assumed, and only Linux code will work, I entered "ls". The result was "(proc) (memdisk) (hd0) (hd0,gpt3) (hd0, gpt2) (hd0,gpt1). Apparently, this is a list of the 3 gpt partitions on hard drive 0, but I don't know what to do with the info.

Tom

OAT · 2026-07-13T12:13:15-0400

Tom,
Just follow the steps in the first linked document in order to modify the GRUB configuration.
(be aware that nano is not notepad so be careful when editing and use the key combination at the bottom of the terminal)
the ^ stands for Ctrl, so before you exit you need Ctrl O , enter, and Ctrl X

Ed McCauley · 2026-07-13T13:07:34-0400

OAT said:
Tom,
Just follow the steps in the first linked document in order to modify the GRUB configuration.
(be aware that nano is not notepad so be careful when editing and use the key combination at the bottom of the terminal)
the ^ stands for Ctrl, so before you exit you need Ctrl O , enter, and Ctrl X

View attachment 176573

I appreciate everyones attempts to help, but as I have stated; Windows is not loaded so I can't get a cmd prompt w/admin privileges. With the exception of "ls" every command I enter tells me that cmd doesn't exist. It says use a text editor preferably nano? It doesn't tell you how to open nano, and i can't change the config file when i can't even get to it...

OAT · 2026-07-13T13:10:22-0400

Ed McCauley said:
I appreciate everyones attempts to help, but as I have stated; Windows is not loaded so I can't get a cmd prompt w/admin privileges. With the exception of "ls" every command I enter tells me that cmd doesn't exist. It says use a text editor preferably nano? It doesn't tell you how to open nano, and i can't change the config file when i can't even get to it...

Who said anything about Windows command prompt?
My reference was not to use Windows but the Linux terminal. (screenshot above)
The Linux command provided starts nano for you.
Try this: Instead of ls, type in pwd (enter)

Asus272 · 2026-07-13T13:22:16-0400

Grub2/Installing - Community Help Wiki

Good instructions very clear

OAT · 2026-07-13T13:28:04-0400

Asus272 said:
Grub2/Installing - Community Help Wiki

Good instructions very clear

I was thinking now that the use of sudo will require a password that the OP probably does not have.
I am unsure about that.

Asus272 · 2026-07-13T13:57:12-0400

It's not really clear what was done that may have caused the problem. A live copy of Linux Mint on a USB could be used to fix but would require some Linux knowledge. If he has a backup of Windows a restore will fix grub.

Ed McCauley · 2026-07-13T14:01:38-0400

OAT said:
Asus272 said:

Grub2/Installing - Community Help Wiki

Good instructions very clear

Click to expand...

Who said anything about Windows command prompt?
My reference was not to use Windows but the Linux terminal. (screenshot above)
The Linux command provided starts nano for you.
Try this: Instead of ls, type in pwd (enter)

If you read the Posts from everyone who is trying to help, Windows is mentioned.
As I have stated, the only command that does NOT produce an error is "ls". If pwd is a sub for ls then I don't need it. I tried pwd and it produces an error.

I have even tried the f12 boot once BIOS option. It states that it is set for UEFI boot, but when i boot it goes directly to a grub prompt.

Knowing it wouldn't work, I tried booting with a bootable

Asus272 said:
Grub2/Installing - Community Help Wiki

Good instructions very clear

But I want to get rid of it, not install or reinstall... Everything there requires knowledge of Ubunto. I tried it - hated it, and now I want if off this machine, but it has taken over the BIOS settings so all I can get is a Grub prompt that doesn't work. Again, it won't allow booting from a Flashdrive, so how can do anything that these sites are telling me to do?

OAT · 2026-07-13T14:14:06-0400

Asus272 said:
It's not really clear what was done that may have caused the problem. A live copy of Linux Mint on a USB could be used to fix but would require some Linux knowledge. If he has a backup of Windows a restore will fix grub.

Yes, the OP is stuck at the GRUB> prompt with limited access to commands.
This requires serious knowledge of GRUB to switch bootable OS, which I don't have.
I wonder if the command below would work by swapping drives.
There is really no guarantee that would work though as I have no volume reference.

drivemap -s (hd0) (hd1)

Asus272 · 2026-07-13T14:27:16-0400

Do you have a windows backup that was made before linux was installed? How old is it? You could move documents, downloads to a large USB before restoring to prevent loss.

Celery · 2026-07-13T15:29:22-0400

Did I understand correctly that you have a Windows 11 (which won't boot) and Ubuntu dual-boot setup on the same SSD, with a single EFI partition? You want to remove Ubuntu and boot into Windows 11?

Formatting the EFI partition is typically unnecessary. Only format it if you want to completely wipe all existing boot data. A common example is after removing a dual-boot installation, as formatting deletes all bootloaders and boot managers stored on the partition.

From the motherboard's one-time boot menu, select the Windows 11 installation USB flash drive as the boot device. If the USB appears twice in the boot menu, select the entry with the "UEFI" prefix. This ensures WinPE boots in UEFI mode, allowing bcdboot to automatically default to installing UEFI boot files.

diskpart
list volume (find the EFI partition number)
select volume # (use the EFI partition number)
format quick fs=fat32
list volume (find the Windows partition letter)
exit

bcdboot x:\windows (replace "x" with the Windows partition letter)

The bcdboot command automatically identifies the FAT32-formatted EFI partition, copies the required UEFI boot files from the Windows partition to it, and creates a new Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store on that partition.

BCDBoot Command-Line Options

learn.microsoft.com

XxXxX · 2026-07-13T15:55:03-0400

if you can make a live Linux USB you can boot into that and then use disks to open the EFI/BOOT partition and remove the Grub folder
then the system will boot in to Windows only.

if you are unable to repair the EFI/BOOT partition then you are looking at a clean install of Windows which will replace everything on the drive including the EFI/BOOT partition.

not the best of news, sorry.
best of luck Steve ..

Celery · 2026-07-13T18:19:08-0400

For a GPT disk to be bootable, it must contain an EFI system partition. This is a small partition, typically 100-500 MB, formatted as FAT32. The UEFI firmware can read FAT32 natively, allowing it to browse the files on the drive before any operating system is loaded.

Windows Setup stores boot-related files there, including:

Code:

\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi - Windows Boot Manager
\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD          - Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store
\EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi            - default fallback boot path (same file as bootmgfw.efi but with a different name)

It looks like there isn't a Windows Boot Manager entry in your BIOS.

The bcdboot command from my previous post (for example, bcdboot C:\Windows) should also create a Windows Boot Manager entry in the UEFI NVRAM.

/s <volume letter>

UEFI:

BCDBoot copies the boot files to either the EFI system partition, or the partition specified by the /s option.

BCDBoot creates the BCD store in the same partition.

By default, BCDBoot creates a Windows Boot Manager entry in the NVRAM on the firmware to identify the boot files on the system partition. If the /s option is used, then this entry is not created. Instead, BCDBoot relies on the default firmware settings to identify the boot files on the system partition. By the UEFI 2.3.1 spec, the default firmware settings should open the file: \efi\boot\bootx64.efi in the EFI System Partition (ESP).

If Windows still does not start after running the bcdboot command and a Windows Boot Manager entry does not appear in the BIOS, try creating the entry manually.

Dell Precision 3541 boots to Grub prompt

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