dual boot issues

[audichris]

I am currently running a dual boot with Ubuntu 9.04 and windows vista sp1. A while ago my roomie tried to recover data off an old hard drive with a second running copy of vista already on it. and of course grub loader gets wiped out. so i take the hard drive out run supergrub to get back into ubuntu. reinstall grub thru terminal and all is well with ubuntu but now vista bootmgr is wiped out. so i bust out the good ol vista dvd and restore bootmgr. Buh bye grub. soooooooooooooooooooo........... What the F@#% do i do?

[Herman]

If that was happening to me I would re-install GRUB with my Super Grub Disk and boot Ubuntu
Then I would run a command like 'sudo blkid' or 'sudo fdisk -lu' in a terminal, or open Gnome Partition Editor to see what disk and partition Windows is in.
Usually, Windows is in /dev/sda1, but if there's a recovery partition there, it could be /dev/sda2 or it could even be some other /dev/ number altogether.
Armed with that information, I would open my /boot/grub/menu.lst file in Ubuntu and edit it with an entry for booting my Windows installation.

A typical Windows booting entry might look something like this,

title (http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eherman546/p15.html#windowstitle) Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
root (http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eherman546/p15.html#root_or_rootnoverify_) (hd0,0)
savedefault (http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eherman546/p15.html#savedefault_)
makeactive (http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eherman546/p15.html#makeactive)
chainloader +1 (http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eherman546/p15.html#chainloader_1_)Where: '(hd0,0)' is the GRUB equivalent of the /dev/sdx,y disk and partition number for my Windows installation, for a conversion table, refer to A Quick Guide to GRUB's Numbering System (http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eherman546/p15.html#A_Quick_Guide_to_Grubs_Numbering_System).

If you need help, please post your 'sudo blkid' or 'sudo fdisk -lu' output and I or someone else here will help you.

Regards, Herman :)

EDIT: You can replace the words 'Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition' with 'Microsoft Windows Vista SP1' or whatever you like after the 'title' command.