unable to dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10

doesn't sound good.
1) did you make a backup of windoze before installing ubuntu?
2) do you have a windoze recovery disk or can download one from another computer?
3) do you still want windoze or do you want just ubuntu?

my guess is that you didn't defrag the hard drive and installing ubuntu wrote over parts of windoze, so when you restarted, it trashed your entire system.

I want to be able to boot either Ubuntu or Windows. I do have a back up for Windows, and can restore it, but I am trying to figure out what I need to change so that Windows and Ubuntu do not conflict with each other and cause the problem again.

I first had the problem last night, and since then have restord windows and reinstalled Ubuntu, but I had the same problem after starting up Windows again when I was done.

well, what i'd suggest is that you recover windoze from the backup, defrag and compress the harddrive before you re-install ubuntu. that may solve the problem.

also, use windoze's disk manager to make the partition for ubuntu. some people have had problems using gparted to make the partition when they dual boot with windoze 7.

Windows was working on the partition just fine after I restored it, until Ubuntu was installed again. Then it worked once, but must have changed some boot settings so that niether system worked after running Windows.

OF COURSE it works after you restored it.
so, as was inferred in my last response, what did you use to make the partition for ubuntu?
did you defrag and compress the harddrive?
blah, blah.

I had the two partitions, than I restored Windows on one partition, so that it was just on that one, and it was running fine. Then I installed Ubuntu on the second. Then after booting Windows again it was not recognizing either system.

It seems that the problem is not that any part of windows got deleted, rather that Windows is changing some settings when I run it, which makes the computer not recognize either Operating System.

This is actually the boot partition issue with Ubuntu (I presume here you installed Ubuntu after installing Windows, and therefore are using GRUB Bootloader - or was rather), if this is the case then insert your Live CD and follow the guide in this forum post: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351

Do you have a HP computer (or also a DELL computer) ?
Some of them write data in the 32kb at start of hard disk at shutdown. This damages the Grub2 bootloader.

Yes. I have a Dell, and it does have a small partition on the hard drive which is called DellUtility. I assume this is probably what you are referring to it writing to. Is there a way to stop it from doing that? Or stop it from damaging Grub2?

I will have a look tomorrow.
You can search inside https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2 about Dell and HP computers. There are many thread and they relate to many bugs.
It's late. Please post tomorrow to remind me to have a look tomorrow.

Hi :)

Are you still having a problem here?

The small partition at the start of the drive is important recovery information for the Windows on your machine. The Master Boot Record is much tinier and can't really be accessed directly. The MBR just points to the current boot-loader. The Windows boot-loader can't see other Operating Systems and assumes that you only want to boot into the latest Windows that was installed on the machine. By contrast the linux boot-loader makes every effort to find other Operating Systems and creates a boot-menu to give you a choice of which you want to boot into. Typically for most of it gives a choice of Windows or Ubuntu with several options for Ubuntu. My home machine gives options for a few different linux's other than Ubuntu but that is fairly unusual. My works machine just offers Windows or Ubuntu which is much more normal.

Do you have an Ubuntu Cd? or can you make one? It doesn't need to be the same version as the one on your hard-drive. Hopefully this will allow you to boot-up the machine using the option to "Try Ubuntu" instead of installing it. Here's a guide to help if that's tricky
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD

Once you get to an Ubuntu desktop please can you get to a command-line
Applications - Accessories - Terminal
and give us the output of this command

sudo fdisk -l

where "-l" is a lower-case "-L" and give us the output in here? This is about the 3rd step in the guide for installing grub2 in this guide
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Reinstalling%20from%20LiveCD
and the output of the command could help us help you understand the guide more easily. The /boot partition on your internal drive needs to be well over 100Mb, i would make it 250Mb or maybe 500Mb just to be really sure. Are you resizing the Windows partition from inside Windows and then creating the new partition from inside Ubuntu? That is the ideal way to do this because Windows is a bit flaky and can't really create linux partitions.

Please let us know how any of this goes. Don't worry if you don't get a chance to try everything here. Just let us know how it goes with what you do get a chance to try :)
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi again :)

Oops, please ignore the part at the end of my previous post where i suggest making a separate partition for /boot. That part was written for a different question and it is nOT recommended to have a separate /boot because it just creates extra confusion without really being much benefit.

Apols and regards from
Tom :)

Sorry, I was very busy. Are you still having a problem?