When I start my laptop I only have the option to load my Ubuntu partition and not my Vista one. How come?

Question

Usually when my laptop starts up I am 1st presented with the option to get to the BIOS by pressing F2 and then presented with the option to load one of 3 Ubunutu kernels and 1 Windows Recovery that holds the Windows Vista 64 partition.

So after Windows Updater downloaded the usual updates I restarted as it asked me to. When the laptop restarted I was presented with the list of Ubuntu 10.04 kernels to load but this time I saw no Windows Recovery option (which is usually located at the bottom of the list of Ubuntu kernels). I should mention that I have the option to enter command line mode. I think it is called GRUB. Not sure what that does.

You should know that I can access my Windows partition fine by mounting the hard drive in Ubuntu. All my files are there and everything seems healthy with them.

Why is the Windows Recovery option missing all of a sudden and how do I restore it so I can log back into Vista?

Answer 1

GRUB is the bootloader. It is not the same thing as the linux command-line interface.

Anyway, try booting into Ubuntu (the normal version). Open a terminal and type these commands in order:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall libdebian-installer4
sudo os-prober
sudo update-grub

Then reboot and cross your fingers.