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My HP Laptop (dv6376nr) was stolen back in June 2008. I just received it back approx. a week ago and things aren't as I left them. When I had the laptop I ran an Ubuntu v. 7.10 disc and set up a dual boot. Well, the theives rebooted my laptop to the default settings erasing all info on Vista( the native operating system of which I never made a backup point on). Anyway, the 40 gigs I had set up for Ubuntu is still partitioned away from vista however I can't access it and there's no boot manager with an option to go into linux just the generic windows load up. I even tried to boot from the "sda3" partition directly (the one with Ubuntu) which was to no avail. I was wondering if i could repair the boot manager or erase the partition to redo the dual boot or if I am just out on 40 gigs. I have tried to run a "Derik's Boot And Nuke" disc thinking I could just erase everything and reinstall vista with the backup discs I made but the laptop didn't even read it.(I'm assuming it's an architexture or OS issue). I also tried running the Ubuntu disc again but it froze up on me (I might not have gave it enough time). As a side note, I don't have any files in the Ubuntu partition it was something I set up so I could play with Linux and learn it so I could break my Windows addiction. I apologize for the length of this post but I just wanted to supply as much info as possible.
Thnx,
Chris

Absolutely. If you must, backup needed personal files from the Vista partition. Then wipe the entire thing. Re-format or re-partition during install. You really should not try to repair the installation. Not safe.

Take the red pill www.calacademy.org/blogs

I recommend you to reformat your disk, reset your partitions and that's all, don't worry for your windows install, most of the distributions out there would detect it and leave it as is.

you may want to try ubuntu 8.04.1 it is apparently very easy to install and use; is not an ad, I use slackware but some people may think it is just too rustic :)