I have an HP dv7 laptop that came with vista ultimate 64-bit preinstalled, which I want to keep. I recently used an Ubuntu LIVE disk to make a partition for Ubuntu, because I needed linux to run a certain program. I got it all installed perfectly, but then I realized that my wireless card on my laptop wasn’t compatible with Ubuntu, so I removed the Ubuntu partition. Now I have only a 295 GB (formerly 285 GB, because I deleted the pretty much useless recovery partition) vista partition, which is what I want. However, when I turn on my laptop, it goes into the GRUB boot loader and says there’s an error, so it is unable to boot vista. I read some articles about how to fix it with a vista recovery CD, but unfortunately, I don’t have one.
I was wondering if anybody knows a way to either completely remove GRUB through windows, bios, etc. or how to set it to automatically boot into vista….maybe a code i can type into the GRUB loader or something? Please help.
Thanks so much to anybody who has something to contribute!
Boot from your vista installation cd, and use the boot repair thing-I had this problem, and it worked for me. It takes about 5 mins to do, and it completely restores the vista bootloader, and overwrites the GRUB one.
Let me know how this works out,
Good luck,
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i would think once you install windows it would auto install another mbr or master boot record (GRUB or LILO in linux not sure what windows uses)
i think running the command in windows recovery consol
fixmrb
or
fixboot
which will restore all windows boot files
(havent used windows in a wile this may be obsolete in the current revision of DOS)
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Windows can not modify or read any part of Linux since Microsoft do not acknowledge the existence of any other OS. When you installed Ubuntu it created the loader and a backup for the original master boot record which it has to modify. If you read the Ubuntu documentation properly it explains how to recover the MBR if you want to remove Ubuntu. your easiest solution may be to re-install Ubuntu, read the recovery instructions and then carry out the restore. You can then simply remove the Ubuntu partition. By removing it now you have removed the boot scripts, but have no access to the Windows partition. Generally unsupported wireless cards often have downloadable drivers for Linux posted on distribution sites. Or there is the ndiswrapper converter for Windows drivers. You may have a problem having removed the recovery partition, it can make it totally impossible to recover the machine if it develops a corrupted system file.
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It will seem a little backward but you need to re-install Ubuntu so that GRUB is re-installed. After that you need to reduce the size of the Ubuntu partition to the minimal amount and increase the Vista partition to the fill the remaining space (MAKE SURE NOT TO FORMAT THE VISTA PARTITION!!!!).
When you eventually get a new version of Windows (if you plan to get Windows 7) then you can install that over Vista and Ubuntu. Without a Windows recovery/install disk you need GRUB working to access Vista.
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ok so, you probably don’t have the installation disk, but can download the repair part here:
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/
via torrent and then write it to a disk with:
http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=changelog
or if you have ISO burning software use that…
then run the start up repair
if that doesn’t work open command prompt with the repair disks and type
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd
bootrec /fixboot
happened to me before
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