Vista - I messed up Vista. Won't boot. Windows boot manager error.

Hello,
I have an HP Pavilion laptop with Vista 64 and a recovery partition for the OS and drivers. I set out to dual boot Linux and Vista on this laptop and everything went badly. I used a Linux LiveCD to:
1. resize Vista - did not know that this was a problem. Did it many times to XP.
2. I deleted the recovery partion after I burned the recovery Disks.
3. I made a small 750MB partition before Vista where I want to place GRUB for the dual-boot. Maybe this step messed up the Vista bootloader ?
4. So, now I have a small ext2 Linux partition of 750 MB, followed by a large NTFS partition where the dead but supposedly intact Vista lies sick, followed by a 35 GB Linux partition where I want to put Ubuntu.

I am not sure which step first made Vista unbootable - the resize or the placement of a partition in front of it. After resizing Vista and partitioning, I did use a Linux LiveCD to check the Vista partition and I found it to be fine as far as data integrity is concerned. I could explore all of my files and folders. *** So, up until now, the data was safe, I had not tried to boot Vista, but I suppose that it was already unbootable due to one or all of the steps taken *** It gets worse.... I then began the recovery process by using the recovery DVDs that I burned. After booting the recovery Disk 1, the display said "loading files". This went on for long enough that I became concerned and shutdown the laptop for fear that it was Installing the recovery OS and drivers without asking me whether I had data that I wanted to retrieve. This is important: I never got to the selection screen of the Vista recovery disk, the process was halted at loading files. HP tech support assures me that the data has not been erased. But...

The problems now are:
1. Vista won't boot. I get a Windows Boot Manager error screen that implies that \windows\system32\winload.exe can't be found. * I imagine that either the resizing or shutting down of the recovery disk caused this.
2. I have tried every Linux LiveCD that I have and I can't mount that partition to check the data now. I WAS able to do so before the recovery sequence began. The error message tells me that the partition was shutdown improperly and seems to imply that it is scheduled to do something and therefore can't be mounted. I am given the option to force mount but that sounds hazardous to me. I want to repeat that HP tech support said the data is still there because I did not get past "loading files". - I just have not found a way to get to it.

3. HP tech support thought that they could help me entirely if I could get a DOS prompt. He kept having me try tapping f8 during bootup to get a command prompt. We could not get that. We just had the same Windows Boot Manager error come up over and over again. I don't know what he was going to do but he thought that it would be game over and victory if we could get the prompt.
*** I am just looking for a fix. Ideally, I would like to get this installation bootable again. If not possible, I would like to at least rescue the data. HP is sending me a special recovery disk in the mail. It should be able to help recover data - should - but I don't trust it. The tech on the phone sounded dicey about it. I think that it only recovers sytem files and folders not my files and folders - the ones I care about.

Thanks,

B

First consider the repair disks you made, have a look at the files on them on another computer. either you may just have your data on there which you can ascess in which case just copy it off, or if there is only 1-3 files on each disk its an image backup. if its an image backup you need to work out how large the total image is i.e add if youve used multiple dvds, or you can add up the sizes of the image files on the dvds.
basically the backup youve made if you think its large enough to cover all of the data stored on the disk then it probably has your data.

Aso if you used the windwos backup utility that backs up everything.

failing that:
Ok to get the vista build to boot again you need a vista x64 disk, boot of this and before the install there is a repair option this sould sort the vista install out and make it bootable again, depending on how serious it is it may just have to repair the BCD file or a complete install but. if its a repair it will only overite the original vista files leaving your original file system in tact. If there is nothing to repair ie your file system has been corrupted youl need software like r-studio wihich will
allow you to recover the data if you plug the disk into another computer.

Hi, brjoon1021

See this guide Ubuntu:Hardy -

Hopefully it will help

Pooch

Hi,

There is something similar when using gparted - this tutorial says

"First make sure that you have a bootable Windows Vista installation DVD, as you will be unable to use your computer if you don't."

Using GParted to Resize Your Windows Vista Partition :: the How-To Geek

As you don't have the install dvd, you may be able to use recovery disc you can create using this tutorial instead

Create a Recovery Disc

Hope it helps

SIW2