So, after receiving some advice from this forum yesterday, I decided to try to install Mandiva and remove the install of Kubuntu that I had. Well actually I removed Kubuntu (by deleting the partition it was in with Vista disk management, I know it was the right partition) and then ran into the GRUB Error 17 (which apparently means that it can't find a mountable partition). I figured that if I tried to install Mandiva it would fix everything by writing over the GRUB.

Well, Mandiva had install problems. About half way through it hangs up and I have to tap the power button to make it continue installation. Then at about 90% it hangs up completely. After the first hang up my laptop starts to make an unearthly, high-pitched noise that wavers as I move the laptop. It even changes if I just move -around- my laptop...

Right now I really just need to get back to where I can use my laptop.. If there is a route I can go that will also get Mandiva on there that'd be great too.

I thought about burning a boot disk that would just intall GRUB, but then I realized I'd have to install an image mounting program.. which is difficult on University computers.

Any thoughts?

GRUB has two programs, stage1 which is in the MBR and loads stage2 which was in the Linux partition. By deleting the Linux partition you deleted the stage 2 program.

Now you need to replace the stage1 program with VISTA's boot code. Some ways to do that are described here and IDBS Remove/Replace/Uninstal Grub

Awesome links there, very helpful...

You could use the super grub CD or Floppy to fix that problem if you have access to another computer to download it from http://www.supergrubdisk.org/