Hello all,
New guy here. I have a problem and it's probably due to my ignorance. I put ubuntu on disk to check things out for the first time. I shut down and restarted my computer with the disk removed. Vista will not load. I am unable to access system repair or format. I looked at the boot drives and number 3 shows nothing installed. Don't know if that's important or not. I am not the brightest bulb on the tree. I am curious about using ubuntu in the future but am most comfortable with Vista right now. I am disabled and spend many hours at my computer. Can someone assist me with this problem?
Thank you.

You mean you booted into Ubuntu, fiddled around, then rebooted into Vista and it didn't work?

That is correct. No more Vista. I have a Dell 531 dual core AMD.

Can you give us some additional details on what type of disk you are talking about? If you are talking about a Live CD version, this should not change your hard drive. If you selected an option to install this CD to your hard drive, you may have messed up the boot record for Windows Vista.

If you have your original Windows Vista CD or DVD or the repair CD, you should be able to boot from this CD and enter "repair" mode, or something that looks similar and fix the Vista boot record. If you don't have a Windows CD or DVD, it could be more difficult.

You might search this forum for repair of Windows boot record or something similar.

Thanks for the replies. I started to install ubuntu from the cd but stopped it to reconsider my decision. Do you think this may be the problem? I have the Vista cd but it will not load up when I start the computer. Do you need more info?

Yes this is probably the problem if you went past the steps for partitioning. At what point did you stop it?

When you boot with the Vista CD what happens? Do you get any messages?

And the problem is...?

Yes, I would very strongly suspect that you went past the point of no return when you started to install Ubuntu. They don't put those dire warnings on the screen for nothing...

What does this mean - exactly.
Do you get any thing at all when you boot from the hard-disk ???.

Do you have access to another machine to burn a rescue CD ???.

I did something similar with XP. I'm not an Ubuntu user but I'd be surprised if it just indiscriminantly formatted the disk and destroyed windows (shame) without detecting, shrinking and dual booting the partition like other distros do. Assuming Vista is still installed it will just be the master boot record (MBR) that needs fixing.

The XP CD has a rescue tool that can be used to check and repair the MBR. The Vista CD should have something similar.

Thanks again to everyone who replied. I got the situation resolved. Went into boot, put Vista cd in, selected option to boot up ubuntu cd. The Vista cd ran! I had a lot of trouble but eventually got it to format the hd. All my private info and important programs I have stored on an external hd. I want to thank each of you personally for trying to help. It was very kind of you.

Actually, if I remember correctly, the primary option in partitioning setup is (if an existing operating system is found) to shrink the existing partition(s) to make space for Ubuntu, and then automatically partition that space. Another option is to format the whole disk, or partition manually. I think that's the case with most if not all "modern" graphical user-friendly Linux distribution setups. Anyway I still think there should be a slightly better warning text (maybe in red) saying that especially without shrinking, partitioning may damage existing operating systems.

There's a website where you can download boot disk images for different Windows versions. Might come in handy if you don't happen to have a setup disc for your Windows; it's not rare that WinXP is sold without actually giving the customer a setup/repair disc (some just make a "repair partition" on the harddisk, but don't think that it's not accessible if bootloader gets corrupted, which is easily the case that happens most often). Not sure if it has something for Vista, because I don't fancy nor use it..

That is *UGLY*. A Linux installer should never leave a system in a state where recovery (even Windoze recovery) is affected. I think I know what caused it - I might try and replicate it and raise a bug against the Ubuntu devs.
They didn't like the last one I raised though.

@saxonpig: next time make sure you get a liveCD to play with. These run (entirely) from the CD and won't affect your system. Ubuntu used to have one, but there are plenty of others - good for getting a feel of linux safely. Can run a bit slow is all.

syg00,
If I burnt it to a disk is that different from a Live CD? I just put it all on a CD and ran it.

Were you polite enough?

A quick peek at ubuntu.com would have told you that Ubuntu Desktop cd (dvd) is a live-cd. It's just that in addition it contains the installer, which you can launch by double-clicking on an icon on the desktop that says "install Ubuntu". It's as safe a live-cd as any other would be, but more usable, being a combined setup-and-repair disc. If the user starts the installation, it's decided by the user - the same as if you burned an extra disc and rebooted, but with less time taken.

I agree Linux installers shouldn't leave the system in a bad state, but then again I think it's impossible to prevent it. You could always reboot, kill the setup program or do something similar. I'm not sure if the setup has a Cancel-button after the last stage, after which it starts moving files onto the machine and actually installing the operating system, but definitely it's stoppable after you've done partitioning, so it is possible to wreck your machine if you don't think about it, just quit the setup. A warning message would be good, telling you that "after you click OK you can't stop the setup without trashing your operating systems". Making the setup so that it can't be interrupted once started would mean taking control off the user completely (so that you couldn't even plug the power cord off, which is quite impossible software-wise)..

Live-cds usually take longer to boot compared to harddisk-installed operating systems, but once the OS is loaded into memory it should run quick enough. Last time I checked Ubuntu it ran on the pc as smoothly as an installed one, only things that required reading the cd took slightly longer (because cd is slower than harddisk). But overall it's not that bad, especially compared to a virtualized OS on a regular pc.