I know there are some guidelines out there "how to uninstall" UBUNTU / GRUB, but none of those fitted for my situation.

I bought a new laptop with Windows Vista (it was more or less impossible to find laptops with different OS). I burnt something called "acer recovery-disc" which is supposed to recover the system if something doesn't work out. I installed UBUNTU 8.04 as the only OS on that laptop. Some hardware was not supported, among other things was it not possible to connect with the internet. That made it difficult to download missing drivers. I still like to give UBUNTU a chance, but my exam preparation starts know and I just have to have a running system with internet connection and so on.

So I used the recovery disk. Boot from it, answer which language I prefer, hit enter and Windows Vista is installed again. Only problem it won't boot. Instead it shows first "GRUB Loading stage1.5." and afterwards "GRUB loading, please wait... Error 22"

I figured out that GRUB is a boot manager, and that I have to replace it by an other boot manager. How can I do this? The only thing I have is this recovery disk (and of course a UBUNTU 8.04 CD) , I have no older Windows Version at hands since my old system was a mac, I have no possibility to burn a CD from a download (the mac has no CD/DVD-burner), but I can get data on a USB stick. There is no data on the laptop that is of any importance on the laptop, so even operations that would erase all data from it would be okay.

Thanks for your help.

It is possible your recovery disk may not have the repair options a normal Vista OS disc would have, but you can give this a try:

1: Insert your Windows Vista Install DVD and boot from it.
2: After selecting your language options choose the "Repair your computer" option in the bottom left corner of "INSTALL WINDOWS" window.
3: In "SYSTEM RECOVERY OPTIONS" window, select your Windows Vista Installation and continue
4: At bottom of "SYSTEM RECOVERY OPTIONS" window, Open a new Command prompt by selecting "Command prompt"
5: When command prompt is open, type the following commands:
The MBR/Boot Loader is now repaired, restart your computer and it should boot into Vista.

If this does not work, try this option.

That should solve the problem....


However ...I'm using Hiren boot CD (any recent version), it has couple handy MBR tools that i use for removing GRUB loader ... You can reset MBR to default, then u might want to instal new linux or add the partition space to existing partitions. (be careful read careful, just read what u press and u'll have no problem)

In my opinion the fastest way to resolve the problem is to have Bootable Win DVD.... Or download Hiren (aprox 97Mb) burn it (guess u have a friend) and use the tools..

But i bet it'll be more fun if you try to make bootable usb with tools on it