Ubuntu killed Vista!

[justusdude]

So today, I was thinking, "Let's give Ubuntu a try." So I downloaded Wubi, a dual-booter and ran ubuntu. It installed and junk, however when I turned it on after reboot, and ran Ubuntu my computer froze before it booted. "Uh oh." was all I could think to myself. So I tried it again and now I can't load windows at all. My boot files (and probably some other essential windows stuff) was destroyed. I think I'm gonna cry! My shiny brand new computer is bwokeded...

[magicdanw]

Don't worry. I've been in situations like this before, and there's a good chance it can all be fixed. First, you need to tell us some details. How far does the computer boot before it stops, and what happens when it stops (error message, freezes, reboots, etc.)

[justusdude]

Boots right past the little HP logo (after which I assume windows tries to boot) and then I get an error message along the lines of "Windows failed to boot due to... blah blah...

IMPORTANT STUFF:

File: \Boot\BCD

Status:0xc000000f

Info: An error occured while trying to read the boot configuration data.

[magicdanw]

Hmm. You said that Ubuntu never installed, right? It just froze before installing? If that's the case, it shouldn't have messed up any boot settings.

[justusdude]

No I installed it with Wubi, which allows you to dual boot. Here's what happened:

I ran Wubi to install Ubuntu. It was about halfway through when my screensaver came up and I had to leave. When I came home and woke my computer up, it said that ubuntu had failed to install; I don't know if the ubuntu iso was completely downloaded or what. But, I ran it again and it didn't try to download the iso and finished installation. So I restarted and ran Ubuntu from the dual boot where it then installed all of its files and I had to reboot again. This time the Ubuntu loading screen came up and the bar filled to the top. Then my computer froze. I restarted and it said that windows has failed to boot and I can't do anything but access the hardware setup menu and restart. So here I am...

[Cure]

You do know that Ubuntu automatically installs a grub loader which lets you choose your OS, a.k.a., duel-booting. I don't see why you ever chose to use a 3rd party program...

Besides, it just sounds like you need to fix the mbr (master boot record). Just pop in your computer's Vista disc, or whatever, choose to repair, or go to a repair console, and type "fix mbr" (at least it works with XP), and it should fix the boot record and you should be able to boot into Windows.

[justusdude]

I didn't know that... I was just on CNET Video where they had a video of how to do it). So, following the folks at CNET's knowledgeable advice I used Wubi.

Here's the link to the video if you want to see my computer's harbinger of doom.

EDIT: And how would I go about doing so?

[magicdanw]

Lets see...I'd have to agree with Cure that the mbr is probably messed up. I know in Windows XP you could boot off the XP disk, enter recovery mode, and run some command like "fixmbr" or something, and that'd reinstall/reconfigure the mbr. Does anyone know if there's a similar command to that for Vista?

[justusdude]

My computer didn't come with a damned recovery disk. Cheap bastards at HP...

[Cure]

It doesn't have to be a repair disc. Try the CD that says "For re-installation of Windows Vista" or similar. And the command is "fix mbr". If that doesn't work, try it without the space.

[magicdanw]

Take a look at this. I haven't used it, but I suspect you could put the fixmbr program on a bootable floppy/cd/flash drive and run it to fix the...well...mbr.

[justusdude]

I'm already trying a different method. I believe it is called Active Partition Recovery. It's a boot disc that can detect deleted partitions (like the MBR) and restore them (I hope).

EDIT: I'll try that too.

EDITii:Didn't work... stupid trial software. Trying the other one now.

[magicdanw]

I looked up Active Partition Recovery, and it looks like it can only recover a backed-up mbr, whereas fixmbr.exe should be able to fix a broken mbr without backup (I think).

[justusdude]

I used active to find out that another mbr had been created in place of what should have been the old one. It's corrupted, with a bunc of zeros in it. And its filename is: wubildr

Still about to try the other one.

EDIT: Didn't work. I can't boot an exe file.

[magicdanw]

Well, you don't boot it. What you do is, you put the floppy disk in a working computer, right click it in My Comupter, choose format, and tell it to put system files on it. This way, it should boot into dos. Then, you add fixmbr.exe to the floppy disk, so once you've booted into dos, you can type fixmbr to run it.

[justusdude]

How do you boot into dos? All I can do is access my hardware info and change the boot order.

[magicdanw]

Put a floppy disk in the working computer you are using now. In My Computer, right click it, choose format, choose Create a MS-DOS startup disk, and click Start. This disk should now boot into DOS. If you add fixmbr.exe to the floppy disk, you can run that program once you boot into DOS.

[justusdude]

SWEET. Only problem is... that I don't have a floppy disk drive on my laptop. Can I do it with a cd?

[magicdanw]

It's possible, but it's more difficult to create a bootable cd. I can see if there's a bootable disk image online that has an mbr tool (UBCD - Ultimate Boot CD probably does), but then you need special software to burn the iso file to a cd.

[justusdude]

I have all that. Just need the files.