[Vista not in menu]

Reinstalling Grub2 from Live CD:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling%20from%20LiveCD

Adding Custom menu entries in Grub2:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Custom%20Menu%20Entries

Hello,

Maybe this is already of some help to fix the problem.
I tried the first method, at the last step I get this output:

vis@vis-laptop:~$ sudo update-grub
[sudo] password for vis:
Generating grub.cfg ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-23-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-23-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-22-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-21-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-21-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
ls: cannot access /var/lib/os-prober/mount/boot
Boot: No such file or directory
Found Windows Vista (loader) on /dev/sda1
done

As you can see, it cannot access the boot directory.

Is it usefull that I try the other methods, or is there another problem?

Found Windows Vista (loader) on /dev/sda1

Implys it has now been added. Is it not there on reboot?

Yes, but this is not the correct one.
This is in fact the windows recovery partition. This is a known issue.

What happens when you select current Windows entry in your Grub menu?

It will start up windows in recovery-mode and then the system freezes (but that is a different problem).
The problem here is that the normal windows does not appear in the GRUB.

Have you tried to add Windows entry in Grub menu?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Custom%20Menu%20Entries

That could maybe solve your problem.

I'm not this familiar with Linux.
Can you please explain to me in the most simple step by step way what I have to do and what I have to edit where.
I apologize for asking it like this, but I am clueless of what to do...

Thank you.

This is what I did myself:
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
menuentry "Windows Vista (loader) (on /dev/sda2)" {
 insmod fat
 set root='(hd0,2)'
 search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 3c98-ac5d
 chainloader +1
}
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

I just changed the sda1 in sda2 and the hd0,1 in hd0,2 as you can see in the text above.
This does not work. It still boots up the recovery windows.

Can you post result of command
    sudo parted -l

Here it is:

vis@vis-laptop:~$ sudo parted -l
[sudo] password for vis:
Model: ATA ST9160310AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 160GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
 1 32.3kB 10.5GB 10.5GB primary fat32 hidden, lba
 2 10.5GB 69.5GB 59.0GB primary ntfs boot
 3 69.5GB 160GB 90.5GB extended lba
 5 69.5GB 136GB 66.9GB logical ntfs
 6 136GB 160GB 23.5GB logical ext4
 7 160GB 160GB 181MB logical linux-swap(v1)

You have to mannualy add an entry in /etc/grub.d/40_custom file.

Can you please give the output of:

sudo fdisk -l

And than tell me on which partition Windows Vista is installed.

Output:
vis@vis-laptop:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x97646c29

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1275 10241406 1c Hidden W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2 * 1277 8454 57657285 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 8455 19457 88381567 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 8455 16582 65288128+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 16583 19435 22915072 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 19436 19457 176683+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Normally it is installed on sda2.

I have added the line of code and rebooted.
The entry does not show in the GRUB-menu...

Did you run:

sudo update-grub

after changing the file?

it worked!
thank you very much for your help.

Thanks Mario Tomljenović, that solved my question.