Grub error 17 - deleted partition?

Question

i was recently dual booting vista and ubuntu. i finally decided that i liked vista better and went into my vista partition manager and deleted the ubuntu partition.

now i get grub error 17 which means it cant boot the selected partition (well obviously, I deleted it...) and i need a way to get rid of grub. i already tried to repair startup but grub seems to have taken over.

I have a lot of important files on my computer and dont want to lose them

please help me!

linux, ubuntu

Answer 1

Boot from windows CD and when the options come up

new install etc press R for repair and follow instructions this will repair boot options and leave files undamaged  

Answer 2

It seems as though you went about removing the partition in the wrong fashion. In order to get rid of this problem you will have to re-initialize the Ubuntu Partition by booting from a bootable CD or DVD. It will also ask you to format the new partition which you will need to do as well. once you have accomplished this, the error should go away. If it doesn't, then i would use a windows Vista or Windows XP startup disk and run the recovery console and get whatever files you need off of it. If that doesn't work either, then your only other option would be to remove the hard drive and put it as a slave or if you don't know how to do this, get an external hard drive Case and put the hard drive in there in order to extract the files you need. You would then use a second hard drive with an OS and use that Hard disk in your computer to save the files to. Then you could switch them out again and reformat the whole hard drive. If any of this seems confusing, i would suggest bringing it to your local technician to have the machine repaired. It may cost you a pretty penny, but if your files are important it may be worth the 200-300 dollars to have it done.