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

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 10:45:52PM -0500, jim wrote:
> 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. I ran chkdsk from a command prompt and
> no change. Below I'm posting the last few lines from the boot log in
> case anyone knows what this means. If I put my recovery disk in it warns
> that it will wipe all partitions. Is there any way to use the recovery
> disk without losing my Linux partition? ( note that it is a recovery
> disk from ASUS so not a complete Vista Disk) I'm considering just
> getting Windows 7 and be done with Vista. If I do will Windows see my
> Linux partition and bootloader and leave everything to do with Linux
> alone? Any advice to get me out of this quagmire would be appreciated.

Windows installs ALWAYS remove any other boot loader from the MBR.
You would have to boot a rescue disk to reinstall grub after the windows
install.  No big deal really though, but a bit annoying.

> Last 20 lines of my boot log :
> 
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\ndisuio.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\rspndr.sys
> Loaded driver \??\C:\Program Files\ATKGFNEX\ASMMAP.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\HTTP.sys
> Loaded driver \??\C:\Windows\system32\drivers\CO_Mon.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\srvnet.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\mrxdav.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\srv2.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\DRIVERS\srv.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\bowser.sys
> Loaded driver \??\C:\Program Files\ASUS\NB Probe\SPM\ghaio.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\drivers\mpsdrv.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\mrxsmb.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\mrxsmb10.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\mrxsmb20.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\peauth.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\secdrv.SYS
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\System32\drivers\tcpipreg.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\ubohci.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\ubsbm.sys
> Loaded driver \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\ubumapi.sys
 

No idea what is wrong with it.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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