How do I restore a broken Vista Partition without breaking Linux?

[jim]

Thanks Evan,
> >>> Hi,
> >>> I know this is a bit off topic here but not sure where to get help on
> >>> this. I have a Vista partition that I need for a course I teach. I'm
> >>> usually in my Linux partition but yesterday when I went into Vista, in
> >>> it's Microsoft way it updated itself to Service Pack 2. When I rebooted
> >>> I got a black screen with the cursor showing. I tried booting into safe
> >>> mode and this did the same thing. 
> >> <snip>
> >>
> >> This fix worked for me on a client's laptop that had the same problem:
> >>
> >> Step #1 - Boot to Ubuntu Live Cd or the distro of your choice…
> >> Step #2 - Navigate to and Mount your harddrive
> >> Step #3 - Navigate to windows/system32/winevt
> >> Step #4 - Rename Logs to Logs_old
> >> Step #5 - Create a new folder called Logs
> >> Step #6 - Reboot to a working vista
> > 
> > Thanks a lot John. I tried this but it seems to do the same thing and
> > lock up with a black screen and white cursor. The newly created Logs
> > file is empty after a reboot attempt. Do I have to give any permissions
> > to that folder I made? Just realized I could only make the folder as
> > root. I'm assuming Windows doesn't care about permissions. I get the
> > sense that it is something minor. There is still activity on the hard
> > disk when it sits on the black screen. It is nice to have the second OS
> > ie Linux so I can edit files in windows to try and get it to boot. Just
> > not sure which files I should delete etc. 
> > Thanks again,
> > Jim
> 
> How many partitions are there on the disk and what are they?
Just looking at it using gparted seems like an odd partitioning scheme.
I just let Ubuntu do it's thing when I installed it over Windows.

/dev/sda1 fat32 Recovery 9.7 GB
/dev/sda2 ntfs /media/VistaOS     150 GB
/dev/sda3 extended	 139 GB
	/dev/sda5	ntfs /media/Data 26 GB
	/dev/sda6	ext3 /		 109 GB
	/dev/sda7	linux_swap       4 GB

I'm assuming the Recovery partition is Expess Gate, the fast bootup
option? Not sure how that ntfs Data partition got in there. I'm debating
just going out and biting the bullet and getting Windows 7 to fix my
Windows partition.

> 
> I have found that the best way to dual boot windows and Linux was to one
> primary partition and one extended partition. In the primary partition I
> would put Windows and I would leave the master boot record untouched.
> 
> In the extended partition I would put all the necessary logical
> partitions for my Linux install. And then I would put lilo on the
> extended partition and make this active. The Lilo menu would give the
> option to boot either windows or Linux.
> 
> In this scenario if windows gets reinstalled, you only have to boot off
> a linux cd and run fdisk to make that extended partition active again.

Thanks for the advice. Hopefully next time I install I'll get the
partitioning right.
jim

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