I’m currently dual booting Ubuntu 10.10 with Windows Vista (please don’t ask why…). I’m currently using the GRUB2 bootloader, but I need to reset my Vista back to factory settings as I wanna clear it up, and get rid of the clutter that’s on it atm. Now I’ve backed up all my important stuff that I need (docs, music, pictures, files, etc) into Ubuntu, and also onto my USB stick just incase. Now my problem here is this: If and when I goto reset Windows, how will I go about it (because i’m not using the windows bootloader anymore) and will the GRUB MBR files be overwritten?
That depends on if your Windows vista disk or partition is an installation disk/partition or an “image”, if it’s an image, it will completely overwrite the Linux partitions too… putting your system back yo how it came when you bought it.
Where are the installation files… on a CD/DVD, or on a recovery partition ?
If on a CD/DVD did you have to “Create” this disk yourself ?
If not, what is written on the disk ?
Either way GRUB WILL be overwritten, but isn’t difficult to reinstall after you have Windows running.
How you go about it depends on your Vista install media, so can you tell us about it.
Is there an option to boot the recovery partition in the GRUB menu?
What IS listed in the GRUB menu?
What is the make and model of the PC ?
Be aware - Reinstalling Windows from a “recovery” partition is highly likely to overwrite the rest of the drive completely, and put your system back to factory defualts… so you would probably have to resize the partitions again, and reinstall Ubuntu from scratch.
BEFORE you do that… be sure to create a restore DVD with the Erecovery software provided… this will make a backup of the Recovery partition, in case something goes wrong… you should have been told to do this when you first started the PC from new.
Thanks Mark, don’t wanna seem kind of vain, but I already knew about this :-\
Is there any way I can back-up, Ubuntu before erasing it completely? I really don’t want too, be installing Ubuntu again, as I’ve lost my LiveCD, and I’ve no net atm.
Currently using my phone as a modem (DUN), in order to access the net just now, so downloading a new copy is straight out the window.
Technically you could just archive everything in your Linux partition, but you would then need to recreate your swap partition, and reinstall the GRUB bootloader… which would really require a LiveCD… so NO, not easily. :-\
Maybe it would be possible, with something like a parted magic, or clonezilla LiveCD, but you’d still need to download that :
!