I reinstalled Vista and lost my Kubuntu partition.

[Guest]

I had a dual boot of vista and kubuntu 4.1. After experiencing the amazingness that is Kubuntu I decided to make Kubuntu my main OS and leaving vista as an unnecessary evil. When I reinstalled vista it killed my Kubuntu. I did not write over the Kubuntu partition, and I'm sure it is still acessable but how? I need some files off of that partition. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[divide0]

Re: I reinstalled Vista and lost my Kubuntu partition.

Check Vista's partitioning program and see what it says that partition is. Start-Computer-Manage-Disk Management. While Vista cannot access the files on that partition (I don't think) it can at least tell you if it's still there or not. It's possible it was allocated as free space, meaning Kubuntu is no longer there. Make sure all the partitions have a blue line at the top and say Healthy (Primary Partition).

Of course, if you've done this already...a hypothesis. It may be possible to assign that partition a letter. I am NOT SURE about this, but it might be possible.

[Fintan]

Re: I reinstalled Vista and lost my Kubuntu partition.

Reinstalling windows will overwrite the mdr with the windows version so your grub (boot loader) is gone from the mbr (master boot record)

First off you should get yourself gparted live:
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

this thing always comes in handy.

Burn it and boot from it. It will show the exact partition situation.

Next have a look here:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081671.0

this is mikes fantastic grub how-to.

especially this part:

Install or Re-install GRUB

How to: Install (or re-install) GRUB from your “main” Linux OS to the MBR of the main hard drive. Let's say your “main” Linux OS (the root files containing /boot/grub) is located in (hdx,y). (See Notation below.)

Case 1: You are able to boot into a (any) Linux OS on your PC.
If so, do so. Then open a terminal (Konsole) get a GRUB prompt as root by typing sudo grub (then press Enter), and type the following (press Enter after each command):
grub> root (hdx,y) # (hdx,y) is the partition of your "main" Linux OS
grub> setup (hd0) # This assumes (hd0) is your “main” booting hard drive MBR
grub> quit
$ exit

Case 2: You can't boot into any of your Linux OSs.
First, you need to get a grub prompt (grub>) somehow. Your two choices are: (1) Use a rescue disk, like Super Grub Disk, from which you can boot into your OS, or press the “c” key to get a GRUB prompt. Or, (2) Use your Live Kubuntu CD. Let's assume (2) here. Put your Live CD in the CD tray, re-boot your PC, startup your Live Kubuntu. Now get a terminal (Konsole) and proceed exactly as in Case 1, starting with “sudo grub” to get a GRUB prompt.

I hope this points you n the right direction.