I bought a new eeepc 1008HA. while playing with the OS, I am now not able to get WinXP/Win7 back! I do not want to lose the original XP because it was using full features of the netbook (small function keys, multi touch keypad etc, also it had MS Works) and also as a backup OS.

Please help me making the old XP available.

Here is how I screwed up the machine!

I got XP pre-loaded on the netbook on "C:". I went ahead and installed Windows 7 on "D:" with all default settings and nothing special. It used to give me "Earlier version of Windows" and "Windows 7" as 2 options while booting the system.

I then got the Ubuntu LiveCD on USB. I used it for a while from USB and decided to install it on disk. Since I did not have any Drive left for Linux, I shrunk "C:" and "D:" from Win7 (My Computer -> Manage -> Storage -> Disk Management). I formatted the empty space created as "E:" - FAT32. Pictorially this "E:" did not appear continuous, it was like,

|-----------C:-----------|--E:--|-----------D:-----------|----E:----|||
(Last two tiny partitions were some recovery Partitions, I guess)

I rebooted the OS back to Win7 to confirm all changes are still there. It was fine.

I rebooted the system using the USB (having LiveCD) and started the Ubuntu installation to the Disk. I had to delete the "E:" partition however again the emptied spaces appeared separate as shows in above digram. I used the space available after "C:" and split that over Swap and Root partition for Linux (EXT4).

Linux now works absolutely fine. I can browse the entire disk.

However if I now reboot the machine to Windows, it shows the startup animation of Windows XP (and Win 7 when that option is selected), but then throws a blue screen and reboots!

I tried the Windows repair option - it doesn't find anything and hardly does anything!

From Linux, I see all files are still there, I think, only the the boot loader is acting funny!

Here is what I see while the system boots,

Ubuntu 9.04
some 2 options related safe mode and memory testing
...
Other OS
Windows

After selecting "Windows", it again shows 2 options,
Earlier Version of Windows
Windows 7

both of these throw blue screen after showing the respective startup animations!


please help!! I do not want to reformat everything !! I do not even have all drivers!

This is a Linux forum... We can't help you fix your Windows partition

Ask for a terminal .you can find it under Applications
Become root or su or sudo type the command fdisk -l(L lowercase)
And nano or pico gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Post the output

Moved: This thread is more suitable in <GENERAL> and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

$ fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1b6c40f9

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 5737 46080736 42 SFS
/dev/sda2 5738 9407 29479275 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 9408 16264 55073695 42 SFS
/dev/sda5 5738 6110 2996091 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 6111 9407 26483121 83 Linux

$


here is the menu.lst (i removed all commented lines)

default 0

timeout 10


title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic
uuid cfb5d6d5-0465-489f-aafa-05624acb7513
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=cfb5d6d5-0465-489f-aafa-05624acb7513 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic (recovery mode)
uuid cfb5d6d5-0465-489f-aafa-05624acb7513
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=cfb5d6d5-0465-489f-aafa-05624acb7513 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic

title Ubuntu 9.04, memtest86+
uuid cfb5d6d5-0465-489f-aafa-05624acb7513
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

title Other operating systems:
root


title Windows Vista (loader)
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
savedefault
chainloader +1

The windows partitions show SFS , to my knowledge it means Simply File Sharing .
Ubuntu expected it to be NTFS .
IS it possible using the WIndows CD to bring it back to NTFS ?
If it is so than windows will load with the command in the menu.lst