Does anyone know how I might enable my boot to Ubuntu again? Here is what I have found but do not know what I should fool with. I thought I would ask for help before I screw it up worse.

I have Ubuntu 10.04.1 installed inside W7 effectivly creating a dual boot system. It’s been running fine for about 2 months. Now when I try to boot into Ubuntu by selecting the boot Ubuntu option in the Windows Boot Manager, it fails and goes back to Windows Boot Manager.

There are 2 screens that flash by in about 1/2 a second when enter is pressed after the ubuntu selection and before it reverts again to the Boot Manager. With the help of a camera and good timing, I captured a picture of the text displayed.

The first screen displays;
Try (hd0, 0) NTFS5 No wubildr
Try (hd0, 1) NTFS5 _

The second screen displays;
error unknown command loadfont
error file not found

In the windows C: drive I find the 2 files;
C:\wubildr created 12/19/10 size 87kb
C:\wubildr.mbr created 11/7/10 size 8kb (created the date I installed Ubuntu)

In C:\ubuntu\winboot\... I find the same two files with the same size and creation dates as in the windows c: drive. In addition I also find a file,
C:\ubuntu\winboot\.wubuildr.cfg, created 11/7/10, size 2kb, described as a MS Office Outlook configuration file.

There are also a files;
C:\ubuntu\disks\boot\grub\ but the grub directory is empty. The grub directory was created 11/7/10. Should there be a file in the grub directory?

C:\ubuntu\disks\boot also contains inaccessible directories, root.disk and swap.disk.

Hello,

Just to make things a bit clearer, you don't have a dual boot system when running Ubuntu (Wubi) inside of Windows since the Wubi installation depends on Windows to function. If for some reason files and/or directories get corrupted or are gone missing then of course it stops working. I'd reinstall using the Wubi installer or consider a 'real' dual boot installation.

Kind regards,

Eric

paulec, I would recommend you to listen to EricTRA. An installation of GNU Linux Ubuntu as an Wubi does not mean you have a dual boot system. This is my suggestion:
Step 1. Save all personal data you have like documents, bookmarks and such. Preferable to an extern HDD.
Step 2. Remove Wubi from your system and make sure that you have burned out recovery disc from your system. Contact your computers manufacture if you are unsure.
Step 3. Download and burn yourself a fresh copy of GNU Linux Ubuntu 10.10. (Or Linux Mint 10 Julia which is based on GNU Linux Ubuntu. Linux Mint is my favorite )
Step 4. Insert your copy in the optical drive (the CD/DVD unit) and restart. Depending on your machine, you can temporarily choose to change boot order, often called "Boot menu" at start. If not, you will have to go into BIOS and change boot order to CD/DVD. The computer will now reboot or enter boot menu. Make sure that you choose CD/DVD.
Step 5. Boot up Ubuntu or Mint. Log on in as an Live Session. That enables you to better connection to Internet.
Step 6. Choose "Installation". The guide that follows is pretty much self-exploratory. The only thing is that you choose to divide the HDD into to parts, one for Windows and one for Linux. The installation should take about 20 minutes.
Step 7. Done! Now you have a fully dual boot system with an Linux part and an Windows part.