Unable to remove Windows from showing up in the recovery mode after reinstalling macOS.

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Unable to remove Windows from showing up in the recovery mode after reinstalling macOS.

Hello,

I had installed Windows 10 using Bootcamp for a short duration. Once I was done, instead of uninstalling it using Bootcamp, I simply reinstalled MacOs on my device erasing the Windows partition. So, now I have a clean install of MacOs but Windows still shows up as an option when I startup in recovery mode. Clicking on it generates the Windows repair/recovery error (given that there isn't any windows startup OS).

I am wondering how I can remove Windows from showing up in the recovery mode options too. I no longer have a need for Windows and would like to remove it from there. I am not sure how to go about it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and your assistance.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Posted on Feb 25, 2024 4:00 PM

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Answer 1

vasrani Author

Level 1

15 points

Feb 25, 2024 9:02 PM in response to vasrani

So, I followed instructions posted https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/122192/remove-windows-entry-from-mac-boot-loader

not exactly as specified there but at least it appears to work. I did

sudo diskutil mount EFI;

cd /Volumes/EFI/EFI/;

rm -rf Boot Microsoft; # I did a mv initially but eventually deleted it

diskutil umount EFI

this seemed to remove windows from the boot loader and now only apple shows up. Since I am not sure what Boot is to contain, I hope I did not mess anything else up but at least for now, it appears to work as I expect it to.

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Answer 2

Tesserax

Level 10

160,612 points

Feb 25, 2024 5:51 PM in response to vasrani

Hmm, I was only aware that you can remove the Boot Camp Windows partition in one of the following three ways:

Via the Boot Camp Assistant
Via the Disk Utility with the Mac booted normally. (Maybe booting up in Recovery Mode would be similar.)
Via the Terminal.

I would do this in that order, depending on my success, using commands in the Terminal as the last resort.

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Answer 3

vasrani Author

Level 1

15 points

Feb 25, 2024 8:35 PM in response to Tesserax

Thank you for your input. I am speaking about the Boot Loader. The boot loader has a Windows OS record still in it with no actual OS installed. Accessing "Startup Disk" through the "System Preferences" interface does not show "Windows" - just Mac OS. Similarly Boot Camp assistant does not recognize that there is a Windows entry in the Boot Loader.

I am not sure how these work and the various types of boot loaders which exist. I have heard of the term EFI and tried "diskutil mount EFI" and then accessed the EFI volume. It shows "Mac OS", "Windows" and "boot". I don't want to edit something without knowing all the places where there are entries for Windows. I'd prefer an interface which takes care of cleaning up all entries and I don't happen to know how to do it.

Thank you for your input.

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Unable to remove Windows from showing up in the recovery mode after reinstalling macOS.

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