Interesting situation with a laptop that I've installed several OS's on,
if I press F12 on boot I get a menu with about half a dozen entries on it
only one of which is still valid. Latest install was Ubuntu MATE when I
told it to delete everything and start afresh but it didn't clear these
entries.

I have tried various combinations of fixmbr and going into the EFI
partition and deleting everything I can find except "Ubuntu" but no joy.

I can treat it as a play machine, there's no data on it, so would
diskpart's "clean" clear everything or do I need a scrubbing brush?

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
There are 3 types of people in this world. Those who can count, and those
who can't.

On 01/12/2022 in message <xn0nq3gfe1rnaj600i@news.individual.net> Jeff
Gaines wrote:

>
>Interesting situation with a laptop that I've installed several OS's on,
>if I press F12 on boot I get a menu with about half a dozen entries on it
>only one of which is still valid. Latest install was Ubuntu MATE when I
>told it to delete everything and start afresh but it didn't clear these
>entries.
>
>I have tried various combinations of fixmbr and going into the EFI
>partition and deleting everything I can find except "Ubuntu" but no joy.
>
>I can treat it as a play machine, there's no data on it, so would
>diskpart's "clean" clear everything or do I need a scrubbing brush?

No it doesn't!

It gets rid of the partition completely and Ubuntu says there is no OS on
the computer but I am still offered half a dozen options if I use F12 to
bring up the boot manager.

Do commands like fix mbr work? Should I boot into DOS (not sure I can
actually) and use fdisk or do I put the NVMe in the dishwasher?

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
Every day is a good day for chicken, unless you're a chicken.

On 02/12/2022 in message <xn0nq4ip82qfxv100j@news.individual.net> Jeff
Gaines wrote:

>It gets rid of the partition completely and Ubuntu says there is no OS on
>the computer but I am still offered half a dozen options if I use F12 to
>bring up the boot manager.
>
>Do commands like fix mbr work? Should I boot into DOS (not sure I can
>actually) and use fdisk or do I put the NVMe in the dishwasher?

No they don't it seems, having run "clean" in diskpart then bootrec
/fixmbr and bootrec /fixboot I am still offered half a dozen options when
I press F12 for the boot menu. I even downloaded a GRUB2 iso that's
supposed to clean it but the options I found by Googling don't actually
exist on its menu.

I am at a complete loss now, any suggestions.

NB - it's a really good idea to make sure you've selected the correct
drive when using the commands I mentioned earlier. Anyway, I have
reformatted my Ventoy drive, reinstalled Ventoy and copied all the images
over again :-(

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
Remember, the Flat Earth Society has members all around the globe.

Jeff Gaines wrote:

> I am still offered half a dozen options if I use F12 to bring up the boot manager.

Are those options coming from the EUFI boot manager, rather than from the disk's
boot sector or partitions?

On 02/12/2022 in message <juu9nsF1ofeU1@mid.individual.net> Andy Burns
wrote:

>Jeff Gaines wrote:
>
>>I am still offered half a dozen options if I use F12 to bring up the boot
>>manager.
>
>Are those options coming from the EUFI boot manager, rather than from the
>disk's boot sector or partitions?

I'm not sure how I can tell. There are 4 x entries for Ubuntu and one for
Windows boot manager - Ubuntu MATE is installed and I had used diskpart
clean to give it a completely empty drive.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to get along without it.

"Jeff Gaines" <jgnewsid@outlook.com> writes:
> Andy Burns wrote:
>> Jeff Gaines wrote:
>>> I am still offered half a dozen options if I use F12 to bring up
>>> the boot manager.
>>
>> Are those options coming from the EUFI boot manager, rather than
>> from the disk's boot sector or partitions?

I think that’s a good guess.

> I'm not sure how I can tell. There are 4 x entries for Ubuntu and one
> for Windows boot manager - Ubuntu MATE is installed and I had used
> diskpart clean to give it a completely empty drive.

Under Linux efibootmgr will display the current list and can be used to
modify it.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/devtest/overview-of-boot-options-in-efi
looks promising for Windows, although the Itanium reference is showing
its age a bit l-)

--
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

On 02/12/2022 in message <wwvfsdx91r5.fsf@LkoBDZeT.terraraq.uk> Richard
Kettlewell wrote:

>"Jeff Gaines" <jgnewsid@outlook.com> writes:
>>Andy Burns wrote:
>>>Jeff Gaines wrote:
>>>>I am still offered half a dozen options if I use F12 to bring up
>>>>the boot manager.
>>>
>>>Are those options coming from the EUFI boot manager, rather than
>>>from the disk's boot sector or partitions?
>
>I think that’s a good guess.
>
>>I'm not sure how I can tell. There are 4 x entries for Ubuntu and one
>>for Windows boot manager - Ubuntu MATE is installed and I had used
>>diskpart clean to give it a completely empty drive.
>
>Under Linux efibootmgr will display the current list and can be used to
>modify it.
>
>https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/devtest/overview-of-boot-options-in-efi
>looks promising for Windows, although the Itanium reference is showing
>its age a bit l-)

Many thanks Richard :-)

I will look in detail tomorrow. Since my last post I have tried to load
Win 98 so I could use fdisk, that was quite amusing as it died when it
realised it was looking at a 500 GB NVMe drive! I used diskpart to clean
the disk again, added an mbr primary partition and installed Win 10 on
that. I then installed Mini Tool Partition Wizard and looked at the drive
and there's no hidden partitions.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant

On 02/12/2022 in message <juu9nsF1ofeU1@mid.individual.net> Andy Burns
wrote:

>Jeff Gaines wrote:
>
>>I am still offered half a dozen options if I use F12 to bring up the boot
>>manager.
>
>Are those options coming from the EUFI boot manager, rather than from the
>disk's boot sector or partitions?

Found them Andy, thanks for making that point :-)

In the BIOS there is a menu headed "Boot Options" then several sub items.
What I didn't realise was that hitting "Enter" while on "Boot Menu" opens
up a list and lo and behold there they all are!

Presumably if you install an OS using UEFI/Secure Boot or similar an entry
is added there but apparently never deleted?

Anyway, I have deleted the extra entries, something new to learn every
day, thanks again :-)

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
There are 3 types of people in this world. Those who can count, and those
who can't.