Vista won't boot after attempting to load Linux on dual partition

[Guest]

I installed Vista Ultimate 64 on a dual partition, the installation was good
and Vista was working very well. I then attempted to install Linux on the
second partition, however Linux didn't start the intall in the second
partition, it attempted to install into the Vista partition. This eliminated
the drivers and Vista won't boot. I attempted to repair this problem with the
install disk, however it says there is no hard drive.

I was considering FDISKing the hard drive. I don't know how to get to a DOS
prompt though. Does anyone have any ideas about how I can remedy this problem?

 

[Michael Solomon]

I installed Vista Ultimate 64 on a dual partition, the installation
was good and Vista was working very well. I then attempted to install
Linux on the second partition, however Linux didn't start the intall
in the second partition, it attempted to install into the Vista
partition. This eliminated the drivers and Vista won't boot. I
attempted to repair this problem with the install disk, however it
says there is no hard drive.

I was considering FDISKing the hard drive. I don't know how to get to
a DOS prompt though. Does anyone have any ideas about how I can
remedy this problem?

You shouldn't need to FDISK and I wouldn't recommend it for a Vista install
unless all else fails.

Once Linux setup hosed your Vista setup, repair couldn't recognize your
setup, hence the warning you got. However, Vista setup should be able to
handle this. Start a new install with Vista, when it takes you to the
screen with a few install options, there should be a button for either
"Advanced" or "Other Options" or something similar on, I believe, the lower
right of the screen. Click that and you will see options to delete
partitions, create new ones and format.

The partition map that opens will probably show the partition with the
broken install as "Unknown" or something similar but it should show
something that you can then delete, create a new partition in its place,
format and you're good to go.

 

[Don]

I installed Vista Ultimate 64 on a dual partition, the installation was good
and Vista was working very well. I then attempted to install Linux on the
second partition, however Linux didn't start the install in the second
partition, it attempted to install into the Vista partition.

Hm. I wasn't there, so I can't be sure about anything, but my guess is
that you are misinterpreting what you saw. A linux installer would not
attempt to install to an NTFS filesystem -- it would be impossible.
You could, however, tell linux to delete and reformat your Vista
partition -- but I don't think you could do that without even knowing
about it.

More likely, linux installed its own boot loader in the master boot
record of your hard disk, which erased the Vista boot loader. It's
a very common problem and there are too many solutions for me to
list them here. But if you are going to be multi-booting *nix and
MS operating systems you'd better learn them PDQ ;o)

Google should give you more info than you want to know about it.