Undoing a partition

[zeroradius]

Hi I curently have my harddrive partitioned so that 500 GB has windows vista and 500GB has Ubuntu Linux. I want to take linux off and combined the storage for both partitions so that windows is using 1TB. I plan on installing VM ware to run linux from now on so having multiple partitions is useless. I found a nice tutorial for the VM ware so could some one explain how to "un-do" the partition?

[Jordan]

Delete the partition and resize it with Vista's partition utility. Here is a tutorial on resizing it: How to resize a partition in Windows Vista | Vista Rewired

In that same place you can delete your Linux partition.

[zeroradius]

Oh God I messed up bad! I went in like the tutorial said and sall all the partitions. I thought I could figure out how to delete the linux partition so that I could then follow the tutorial Jordan mentiond. First I expanded my main drive to join with some un alocated space. I then deleted what I thought was the Linux partition and tried to combined it with one of the other partitions but it would not let me. I re-started my computer and loaded ubuntu, once I sall it was still working I wen back into vista and did a system restore incase what I deleted was inportant ..... aparently that was a bad move. I went to start my computer back up so the restore would take effect and I got this :

Grub loading 1.5

Grub loading, please wait ....

Error 17

I tried to look it up on the net but all i could fined is it had somthing to do with Ubuntu. I am completly freaking out right now, any help would be apreciated.

[Jordan]

Ouch, I'm not sure how a system restore could of done that. Put your Vista CD in and run rescue, it will fix this. There is also a Vista Rescue disk floating around on the internet that you can download which will fix this.

[phpforfun]

quick note, I tried this, make sure that you are able to boot straight into windows, I installed linux, then windows, thus it looked at the linux boot menu (grub), and if grub isnt there, its gonna have an issue, I think

[phpforfun]

LOL, I just read the entire thread, I guess you already did it, and what I said would happen.. happened.

You can just re install linux, and the existing windows partition should be there

Ouch, I'm not sure how a system restore could of done that. Put your Vista CD in and run rescue, it will fix this. There is also a Vista Rescue disk floating around on the internet that you can download which will fix this.

I doubt that a vista cd can fix a linux grub issue.

Now this is just me messin around, im not sure.
your computer boots up, it looks at the grub menu, THEN you decide if you want to boot into linux or windows, does the fact that you are looking at the grub menu before you get into linux mean that you boot straight into linux? or is there something in your CMOS that enables a linux boot menu?

Just me thinking out loud.

download and burn the Grub super cd (it's probably not called that, but I don't remember it - a web search ought to bring it to you) that can fix all sorts of boot problems.
Download Super Grub Disk 0.9763 for Linux - Super Grub Disk is a bootable floppy or CDROM that is oriented towards system rescue. - Softpedia
I THINK thats it, I havent used it, but I know that this is what its for!

Grub is a linux issue, needs to be fixed with linux, till then, your windows is lost.

MAYBE!!.. you can use your ubuntu live cd, use gparted, and see if it has a tool for this..

[morefood2001]

Just after a quick look at this and not reading much, I know exactly what happened (Its happened to me numerous times).

You removed the ubuntu partition and the boot loader in the mbr got screwed up slightly. Vista is fine as long as you didn't remove that partition. All you need to do is pop in the vista cd and click on the recovery option and click automatically fix my problem. The vista disk will reinstall the vista boot loader and you will be all set. XP was much more difficult because you needed to know msdos and the recovery console.

If you want grub back, you can boot up a live ubuntu cd and install grub to the main windows partition, but I wouldn't recommend that.

Let me know if this helps.

[phpforfun]

That works too, not as interesting of a fix, lol..

[Jordan]

Vista won't fix a Linux grub issue, lol. Vista rescue CD will run fixmbr which will remove Grub entirely and boot straight to his Windows installation (and that is what he is after).

[TkTech]

Grub is a 2 (some argue 3) stage bootloader. Your copy of grub is crashing because it can't find the stage two file on your *nix partition, usually /boot/grub/stage2

You can use a ubuntu boot disk and then use 'grub-install' to fix grub, or your alternative is to simply use the vista recovery console (which unlike a repair [which takes a long time] only takes a few minutes to boot into) and then reinstall the MBR.