Can't start up Gutsy Ubuntu. Dual Partition with XP
 

Okay, so here's the deal.

Basically, my Windows XP effed up a while ago so I switched over to pure Linux (Well, left the XP partition alone and switched over to my Linux one on the same HD).

BUT.

Just today I decided to try and fix Windows by popping in my handy dandy XP Pro CD to reinstall it without formatting and losing my files. However it didn't recognize the NTFS partition for some reason and said I would need to format. Didn't want to do that so I quit out of that and restarted but when it loaded up it got stuck at a screen. Didn't even get Ubuntu's default GRUB thing or whatever. Just a part of the basic computer start up stuffs with the blinking cursor.

SO.

I tried popping in my Ubuntu CD, and then going to "Boot from first harddrive" option. and it'd go to the "booting..." screen but it'd just stay there. I even tried to open up my files through LIVE Ubuntu but it wouldn't open anything up. Couldn't even get terminal up.

I would imagine that just the GRUB (I don't even know if it's GRUB) is defunct, but then why can't I access any of my files already on the HD?

If anybody can help me by pointing out a different thread that could help or has any knowhow themselves on how to fix this problem, I'd be very thankful.

Repair From Booted Hard Drive
 

Boot from the live CD, then go look at grub's config files under /boot, but remember that it's the boot on your hard-drive, which you'll have to mount. It sounds like when you ran the Windows CD, it overwrote information needed by the dual boot. There are probably tutorials on this site for setting up dual-boot, and there are serveral in the Ubuntu forums.