I tried to install ubuntu on a partition on the drive that had windows and it froze at the end of installation, now when I try to boot windows I get a brief blue screen and a restart... this happens right when the windows xp boot logo comes up... now I am in the recovery console from the installation disc, should I use the fixboot command to write a new bootsector to c:? Is there any way I am going to be able to recover windows? thanks
You can try the fixmbr and fixboot coomand and see if that fixes it. At worst it won't damage anything. If fixmbr/fixboot doesnt fix it, what you describe sounds like a drive letter change problem, this happens with windows xp sometimes when partitions are added/cloned etc that affects the mbr. If you have an older computer, you can use the demo of "paragon justboot corrector" to check the registry (inspect the drive letters)of your non-booting hard drive. The demo won't fix it, but it will verify if that is your problem. Note the demo is an old build of the "boot corrector" and might not work with the latest sata drives/motherboards (the newest version of the boot corrector is only available in the latest version of "paragon partition manager 9.0 boot cd) demo of boot corrector http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/downloads/JustBoot_Boot_Corrector_38938_p/ If you do have a drive letter change problem, just changing the drive letter back will fix it. Without a "boot corrector" it can be done but it will take a while. http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=174958 As long as you don't reformat your hard drive, you can fix your problem. The MBR and your "system partition" are entirely different. If possible backup your system partition and save it to an external drive. You can use the demo of easyimage to create an image backup of your hard drive (you need to load that program on another computer and then create a bootable recovery cd on that computer to use on your non-booting hard drive.) This way if you do damage your system partition when doing repairs, you at least have a backup that you can restore. hard drive image backup software http://www.eazsolution.com/en/easyimage.php
