Oops!
Am I correct in thinking that you used SuSE to change the size of your Windows partition when you installed it?
Did you leave your Vista partition in tact when you installed Ubuntu by using the partition table that SuSE had used or did you tell it to use the whole disk? If you did specify using the whole disk you have a problem.
If you did then (fingers crossed) you should still have a perfectly good Vista installation, it is just that Grub doesn't know where it is. Ubuntu will have overwritten the Grub configuration but didn't know that Vista was present.
You can point Grub at your Windows O/S by using the Grub command rootnoverify. Take a look at 4.1.2 at
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...-GRUB-natively
Your laptop manufacturer should send you a copy of Vista which will automatically remove Grub and install the Microsoft boot loader in a 'take over the whole world' kinda way.
I would imagine that you tried OpenSuSE (as opposed to SuSE) which excludes certain proprietary drivers such as the Atheros wireless ones. They can be added with ease, shame to have given up so early. If you have the stomach for it do go back to SuSE, with a little effort it is a simply superb OS.