I have a laptop with two partitions, dual booting Vista and Ubuntu. laptop was originally furnished with Vista. It's become totally unusable and I want to install XP on the NTFS partition erasing Vista. I know that after installing XP it will overwrite the MBR and GRUB will be lost.
Please, advise how to recover GRUB after the XP install. all data is now on the Ubuntu partition. I need XP just for games for my kids. barbie and harry potter ...

I spent 30min looking for sth like that but could not find it. please, just reference if such a thread exists. sorry for my clumsy searching.

happy ubuntu user

Too lazy for an lq search, here you go

Serafean

You should be able to reinstall GRUB with your Ubuntu installation CD or just google with "ubuntu recover grub after windows". Change grub with your version like grub1 or grub2.

-gibb

Most laptops with vista has hidden recovery partition

yes it has a hidden partition. is that a concern? I will have XP, ubuntu and the hidden or if you advise I can get rid of the hidden.

I have an Acer laptop and the hidden recovery does not work. Vista after 3 service packs is simply unusable.

pls comment.

It's a restore portition.
What make and model?
Don't touch hidden.
Was original Vista or xp?