grub2 - Computer won't boot without external hard drive (now won't boot at all "Boot Device Not Found")

The hardware involved is a HP Spectre x360 laptop (running windows 10 - at least it was :[ ) and 1TB WD Passport Ultra External Hard drive.

Scenario:

I am attempting to create a external hard drive with a portable Ubuntu (no ties to the hard drive of the laptop). Visiting the forum pages and attempting the suggested solutions have led me to a computer that no longer recognizes Ubuntu on my external hard drive or the windows 10 OS on the laptop HD apparently.

Steps that have led down the dark and lonely path:

1. I created a bootable USB with Universal USB installer using Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS iso.


2. I then booted from the USB and chose the option to "try ubuntu without installing".


3. I then plugged in my external hard drive (lets call it EHD) and double clicked on the desktop icon to install Ubuntu.


4. I chose my language and clicked "continue".


5. I was connected to the internet, power source, and I had enough drive space.


6. I chose to download updates while installing and install 3rd party software.


7. I then chose installation type => "Something Else".



8. I then chose /dev/sdc My Passport(1TB) for the device for boot loader installation.


9. Under /dev/sdc/ I created three partitions from "free space":
   
   
   
   
   • 1st: 50GB, Primary, Beginning of this space, Ext4, "/"
   
   
   • 2nd: 15GB, Logical, Beginning of this space, swap area
   
   
   • 3rd: 500GB, Logical, Beginning of this space, Ext4, "/home"
   
   



10. I then pushed install now and then shutdown the system and removed the USB when the installation was finished.




11. Now, with the EHD plugged in, the purple screen appears giving me options to boot windows or ubuntu and both options work great.




12. I shutdown, removed EHD usb (thinking I won!), and start up the laptop. It goes to the black GNU GRUB v2blahblahblah screen with the grub> command terminal. Hmm, first I tried changing boot order with Grub Customizer, that didn't work. Forums then lead me to believe that the bootloader was installed on the laptops hard drive (though I don't think I did - see Step 8). So I tried to follow this Dual-boot computer won't boot without external hard drive.


13. So I got Rescatux on a bootable USB to attempt to repair the windows MBR, and ran the program choosing the first sda partion options (it appeared "common sensical"). But now regardless of if the EHD is plugged in or not I get a friendly message saying "Boot Device Not Found".


14. I soldiered on though, hoping that I could at least get the EHD working. So I booted from the live USB and ran boot-repair. It seemed to function normally giving me the warning of requiring internet access. I had access so I said yes and it performed its stuff (i think it said Updating) but then after a few minutes the process started over warning of internet access again. It did that a couple more times after which I said heck with it and quit boot-repair.


15. I then shutdown, removed the live USB and booted the system with and without the EHD plugged in. Regardless it goes to the black HP Boot Error screen (though it will still recognize the live USB and let me boot from that).


16. That brings me to where I am now. I have a laptop and EHD that won't boot Windows or Ubuntu. I would greatly appreciate your help in the following:
    
    
    
    
    • Fix my laptop so it boots to Windows 10 OS like it should. I don't want dual boot. Just 'ol windows.
    
    
    • Fix my EHD so when I plug it into my laptop, desktop, etc. I can boot to Ubuntu.
    
    

Much obliged for all your help in advance.

UPDATE #1:

The link to the boot-repair info is http://paste.ubuntu.com/15338181. If you could interpret the results and proper solution I would appreciate it. Unsurprisingly there does appear to be some shenanigans going on.

The sda is my laptop hard drive (laptop came with windows 8.1 and then I moved to windows 10 when it was released), sdb is the live USB, sdc is the EHD.

UPDATE #2:

I tried to do a clean install with windows 10 and it wouldn't work. So I tried with windows 8.1 (since that is what came with the computer originally) by deleting each partition except one that had an OEM description (deleting that seemed a bit scary if I did't have to). It seemed to work but on restart after everything was done I once again got the boot error screen no OS found. This is the new boot-repair info http://paste.ubuntu.com/15340916 (the EHD is not attached so it doesn't showup this time). I looked at the hard drive in gparted and the partition sda3 says unknows (it was like this before the clean install as well). Suggestions on how to proceed?

I did find a solution to my problem but unfortunately not the elegant one I had hoped. Perhaps it would have been possible near the beginning but things went down hill after trying Rescatux... shame on you Rescatux! :) jk, jk

Anyways, the final solution after Update #2 above was to:

1. I recorded what I believe is my windows key using the Ubuntu live USB terminal and entering the line below just in case things went south(...er):

sudo xxd /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM

2. I then did a clean install again within Windows 8.1 but this time I also deleted the OEM marked partition as well (I didn't delete that one before). Everything worked fine then and I was able to complete the install, upgrade to Windows 10, and reinstall the necessary drivers. For whatever reason not having deleted that OEM marked partition was preventing the clean install from functioning correctly.

Although this worked, it was kind of the sledgehammer approach by turning the initial Ubuntu problem into a pure Windows problem. Hopefully when I try to make the external Ubuntu hard drive again I won't climb down this rabbit hole again.

UPDATE #1:

Still needing an EHD I repeated steps 1-11 and part of 12 (up to and including unplugging the EHD and getting the black gnu grub screen). For whatever reason, Ubuntu puts boot files onto my internal hard drive see boot-info before and after ubuntu install. So to get to Windows without the EHD attached type "exit" in the grub terminal and Windows will boot... Now to get rid of that pesky GNU GRUB screen and make sure the EHD behaves properly.