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Solved: Harddrive boots to utility partition on startup

896 Views 5 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  Mosquito555, 
T
Ok, so i was trying to install some new hardware, and it got installed sucessfully. Then, as i was booting to my Ubuntu harddrive, i selected to boot to my Vista harddrive, forgetting that the HDD #'s had been switched around due to the new computer (Ubuntu was now on HDD # 0, Vista #1, i can give you the exact harddrive directories if you want). So, somehow it rebooted, and it booted to the Utility Partition. When i unplugged my Vista harddrive, after loading the BIOS it would say "No operating system found" which implies somehow my Ubuntu got messed up. When i unplugged my Ubuntu and plugged my vista in, it would boot to utility partition. I re-installed Vista (x64 Ultimate) on my original Ubuntu drive, and I'm using it right now. I'd just like to know how to boot into my OS on my old Vista drive, it has a lot of stuff I would sorely miss if i had to format.

Full specs are as follows.
Maker: Dell, Inspiron 530D
4GB of RAM (2x 1gb sticks, 1x 2gb Corsair stick, would have more but mobo supports just 4GB)
Intel P35 Mobo
PNY XLR8 GeForce 8800GT (OC'd relatively high- can't remember exactly though, sorry)
300-watt PSU
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 @ 1.8ghz, can't OC, BIOS is locked...
(Old)Triple boot of... Vista Ultimate x64 edition, Ubunutu 8.04 x86 edition (Dominant- it controls all my bootable operating systems through the Grub bootloader, uninstalled due to above problem), Sabayon Linux (uninstalled- i need a more "compatible" Linux distro or Mac OS X). Currently single boot of Vista x64 Ultimate.

If there is any more info you need, i can probably provide it. I can also provide pics. Even videos, but i don't know why we would need them,
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Mosquito555
Hi

I guess that the master boot record of your old vista installation was written to your ubuntu drive. Since GRUB is not present, your machine cannot find Vista's MBR and assumes that no OS is present.

1) Normally, under XP you could repair your MBR by using your installation cd to boot, entering the recovery console and then using the fixmbr command. I guess that it can be done with Vista as well but I'm not familiar with the OS. I guess you could try that if you know what you are doing.

2) In order to avoid the trickier above method you could just plug your Vista drive but make BIOS to boot from your Ubuntu drive (with new Vista installed on it). If everything goes as planned you will be able to browse the contents of your Vista drive and backup as necessary.

:)
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T
I'll try doing fixmbr from XP install disc, i have one already. Probably will be a more sure-fire method anyways though.
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Mosquito555
No mate, it wouldn't be a good idea...You should try this using your Vista DVD since XP may use a different MBR!!!
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T
Fixed- used DISKPART on my Vista CD, found out Partition 3 was not active. Activated Partition 3. Working fine.
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Mosquito555
Glad you worked things out! :) :up:

You can mark this thread as solved then!
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