Crashed desktop

[Paul234]

I recently installed wubi on a 2 year old HP pavilion laptop for a friend. The install and setup was fast and painless, and after the initial reboot, i started installing some packages. Eventually, I was beginning to install some Java JDK packages when the computer froze. I left it alone for ten minutes, and when i came back, the fan stopped and the mouse/keyboard was frozen. I thought it was just a normal freeze, so I shut it down using the power key. I restarted it, and i got an error message saying something about loading BOOT.INI from the C:/windows directory. I then got a windows message about booting into safe mode (three varieties), the settings from the last time windows worked, or normal mode. All five modes result in some type of loading, a <1 sec flash of a variation of the blue screen of death, and a restart. The files on it are unavailible by using a Ubuntu live cd and accessing the disk, which worked before the crash. Please help me bring back the laptop!

[ago]

Eventually, I was beginning to install some Java JDK packages when the computer froze. I left it alone for ten minutes, and when i came back, the fan stopped and the mouse/keyboard was frozen.
Quite likely you run out of (virtual) disk space. Use a larger virtual disk if you plan to install a lot of stuff

I thought it was just a normal freeze, so I shut it down using the power key.
That is not generally a good idea, even less so when you run out of space (because you may end up shutting down while you have a file open in writing mode). Even if the keyboard freezes (X freezes), linux support Alt+SysRq key combinations (google for all key combinations)

That might well cause a corrupted ntfs (it may happen also if you hard boot windows while doing file r/w operations, it's not really a wubi specific issue). You need to use ntfs restore tools. What happens when you try to access the partitions with ntfs-3g/ntfs?

[Paul234]

would I access the drive with the ntfs tools using a live CD? I haven't reinstalled anything yet so i don't overwrite the files.
Also, how do you increase the virtual disk size on wubi? Is this accessed from Windows?
btw, thanks for the alt+sysRq tip...i've been using ubuntu for a while but never knew that

[tuxcantfly]

if your windows is still working, you can just use toporesize (windows program) to resize the loopmounted partitions

http://csemler.com/cs.html

[Paul234]

Thanks, but that's the thing. Windows loads up to the startup screen, but after a second or two of the progress bar moving, it flashes the blue screen of death for a half-second and restarts. If I were to connect the hard drive to a working windows machine and used toporesize there, would it work?