dual boot, with Vista pre-installed

[Guest]

Hi all:

Strange problem. I have an Dell E1505 laptop. Core2Duo 5200, 1GB RAM, 80 GB
HD. By default, comes with Vista home premuim.
I wanted to try Linux, so I downloaded and burned Ubuntu 6.10 ("Edgy Eft").

I booted from the Ubuntu CD, and resized my NTFS partition, and created a
linux partition, and a swap partition (actually an extended partition since
I couldn't have more then 4 partitions for some reason). I installed Ubuntu,
rebooted, and it works. Works well. I set up my Vista partition to automount,
and I am able to browse it just fine from Linux, can access files (readonly)
just fine.

However, when I try to boot back to Vista, it no longer works. From the Grub
bootloader, I can choose the Vista bootloader, and it boots up to the moving
green lines, then HD stops, and the lines keep moving. I've tried booting in
safe mode, no go, it stops at a certain point (screen eventually goes black ).

Here's the weird part - I tried booting from my Vista DVD, and the same
thing happens. I'm not sure what the problem is here - Dell support says that
"sectors might be corrupt" or something. after some research online, I find
this site:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529

which describes my problem exactly, except with xp dual boot instead of my
Ubuntu. Of course, this means I can't use their solution, but maybe someone
knows how to fix the problem.

I've read a few different ways to have vista & linux, but most of them
assume access to the vista, or to being able to format the HD, which i'm not
sure how to do (like I said, the vista reinstall DVD doesn't work). I'd be
very disappointed if this was a permanent disability of the new OS.

Any ideas?

 

[Michael Jennings]

Akk akk. Akk akk akk! Akk! Zwhrlzoopie blrng zut!!! Ah, Mars Attacks...
Marvelous movie - we come in peace, blue ichor, Natalie Portman.

Ubuntu wants to wipe out Windows. Am I lying? Well, it worked.
Why was Vista unable to prevent itself from being made dysfunctional?
Because we haven't come to the part in the plot where the goodies
stumble upon the music track that explodes the Martians' heads yet.

The problem with wiping out your hard drive is that Dell probably
put a recovery partition on it. Ask them how you can access that
partition to get rid of Ubuntu and restore Vista if you want it.