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View Full Version : [ubuntu] Just some questions about Vista/ubuntu dual boot



Hagar55
November 10th, 2009, 02:17 PM
I've had a dual boot with XP on my desktop for a long time (untill Karmic broke it....still can't get to work yet....food for another topic).
But I'm not that knowledgable in Vista.
I installed Jaunty in dual with vista and that went flawlessly....but since my troubles with Karmic I'm not that happy anymore.
I updated my Jaunty to Karmic and things haven't been going well at all.
It was booting two or three times before I got the log in screen, getting Kubuntu desktop out of the way helped some but not all is well yet.
Logon is very long (much much longer then with Jaunty) and it still struggles to get there sometimes, half the time it says there are errors in fstab that it can't resolve, boot up again and the errors are gone...

I have been thinking of wiping and starting again, but I don't know Vista that well, in XP I know how to fix my MBR with the XP disk if things go wrong.
Now I have a Vista install disk from DEll for my laptop but I'be never taken it out of the package.
Can you fix the MBR of vista in the same way as in XP or will it be a complete mess if the reinstall goes wrong ?

Also should I also wipe the home partition to clean out all the settings or can I leave that as it is ?

presence1960
November 10th, 2009, 02:56 PM
to access recovery console from a Vista installation DVD see here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1014708). Scroll down to the instructions for Vista.

If your disk is a Recovery DVD you can download an iso of Vista recovery console and burn it to CD. It will allow you to access Vista recovery console only. Get the iso here (http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/).

darkod
November 10th, 2009, 03:06 PM
If you have a Vista DVD first take a good look at it and whether it says anything specific on the disc. If it is a recovery DVD those are usually designed to recreate your PC to the factory state.
If it is a plain Vista installation disc then restoring the MBR should be a piece of cake and much easier then in XP. The key word is "should". :)
Boot with the Vista disc and it should offer you restore/recovery option. That is withut a full install, it is separate option from the install option. So be careful.

If you google the question you can probably find loads of articles with screenshots.

Hagar55
November 10th, 2009, 04:30 PM
thanks for the help I'll burn the recovery disk and take a look at my Dell Vista DVD