dual boot vista and ubuntu, lost after changes to vista

monkeybritt · 12-02-2008, 12:32 PM

i dual boot vista and ubuntu, i run ubuntu of a usb harddrive. a while back i made some changes to vista and when i restarted my dual boot screen did not come up. i looked for answers couldnt find any and just reinstalled ubuntu. i now have a back up of grub file but i need to know how i can fix this if it happens again. i saw something like this

grub
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0)
exit

but that did not work for me because the hd i use for ubuntu is usb and i dont know the directory for it. what to do?

ronlau9 · 12-02-2008, 01:21 PM

Run the command as root in a terminal fdisk -l {l lower case} and see if it come up the partitions of both the drives
If so than you know in the future where to reinstall GRUB

jschiwal · 12-02-2008, 02:13 PM

Check your bios settings. Is the usb drive before the internal drive in the boot order?

fragos · 12-02-2008, 03:49 PM

The real problem was likely that Vista changed the MBR to link to Vista and not to GRUB. Reinstalling GRUB likely fixed it because it would have to create a new MBR. Backing up GRUB and restoring would not restore the MBR.

monkeybritt · 12-04-2008, 11:23 AM

the usb drive is after the main drive in the boot menu
i did not think that backing up grub would restore the mbr
when i go into fdisk how do i use what i find? my usb dive shows up as sda1 or something could someone give me an example of the grub command that would fix it? with the hd being the usb disk? thanks alot thought i will have to comment that ubuntu forums are a close knit community and soon i will be departing mostly from vistas glammerized junk that makes everything else not work. long live the penguin

koen plessers · 12-04-2008, 02:16 PM

Hello

I use EasyBCD to dual boot Vista and Ubuntu: http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

Have a lot of fun

Koen Plessers