Vista completely unbootable. Please, please help

[machineman9]

As you may know, I have an issue with the GRUB boot loader with Ubuntu. I have one HDD with Ubuntu, one with Vista... neither hardrive will boot up without the other making my computer unusable as I need the Ubuntu HDD elsewhere.

Earlier I saw a thing about a magic button you can press to do a repair without the repair disc. I just booted up, tried pressing TAB (after GRUB) and I was able to then press F8 to go into repair mode.

I went into Windows repair mode, tried to repair the startup, but apparently everything was fine. I then chose Packard Bell repair mode. It offered me a repair where I lose everything (complete reinstall) or just a repair of the errors. I chose the latter, and it got to work.

About an hour on I try booting up again and GRUB is still there.

I go into Windows mode, and then it displays 'Windows is now configuring to be installed for the first time'. I wait, as I half expected this to happen. I wait longer, past a Vista-theme background until it displays an error message saying that there is a problem with how it is booting, and cannot reinstall.

I reboot, try again, same error. I try a third time and Vista just simply will not install. It has found a problem with how it is booting up, but it just reboots itself.


So as you can probably tell, I am using Ubuntu to write this... I am also feeling mightily screwn over too.



Can you please suggest something for me to do to try and fix this issue? I don't mind using Ubuntu for a while, but I really do need Vista going.


Cheers a million.



edit: I am attempting to back everything up, but I have 4gb of memory sticks and roughly 20gb of files... so I could do with not deleting everything

[machineman9]

I also managed to download the files to build a recovery disc. I boot that up and first time around it acknowledges I might have something wrong with the boot order, so I chose to repair... but it didn't remove GRUB.

When I try to actually reinstall Windows, I get the following error:

0x80070002

D:\sources\install.wim is missing


To be honest I don't think I have a D drive. I want to install onto C drive which is where my backed up files are.

[Hagar]

Your D: drive is probably the DVD drive it's trying to read from.

When I try to actually reinstall Windows, I get the following error:

0x80070002

D:\sources\install.wim is missing

Seems your not alone. I found this on Google. Hope it's some help. Cannot find file d:\sources\install.wim

[machineman9]

Thanks, but I have come to the conclusion that this issue isn't worth me trying to fix. I am going to check my warranty and see if it is still covered, then probably send it in to get repaired by those who know more in the topic than I do.


I was really quite fustrated though, as after the damage got caused, the solution came along also. It required simply typing in "bootrec.exe /fixmbr"

That single line could have fixed my problem if I hadn't jumped into it so quickly. Oh how I hate what I have done  :-[


Ahwell, the motto of my life is that 'doggy doo does happen', so it happened, so I got annoyed for a bit, but it is nothing that is unfixable


Cheers anyway. Vista needed reinstalling anyway...  It is just going to cost me a lot more than I had hoped no doubt. And I hopefully get an extension onto my coursework  ;D