Please help!

I have no idea what is happening. I have Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Ubuntu as a triple boot, (Ubuntu is version 8.10 installed through wubi in Windows 7). I shut down the laptop (Dell inspiron 1720) and went to sleep yesterday and today morning when I started it into Vista, it just stays at the loading bar and never moves forward (I left it on for 25 minutes before doing a hard power off). I tried safe mode, and it is stuck at crcdisk, I tried using the OS cd provided by Dell, but it doesn't even boot into the repair menu (it goes to the never ending loading bar no matter what I try, same is the case when trying "last known good settings"). The same thing is happening to Windows 7. But for some reason, I can log into Ubuntu just fine, but the startup was noticeably quicker than when Windows 7 and Vista were working properly (it seemed to have skipped a whole lot of steps today that were followed when Windows 7 and Vista were working properly). Since I have tried whatever I know on the Windows side, is there anyway to use Ubuntu to recover the system? Please help, I will greatly appreciate it.

 

You should be able to mount your Windows partition from Ubuntu and at least backup your data to a external source. It really sounds like you have a hardware problem.

Try downloading a hdd diagnostic tool from the manufacturer of your hdd and check it - but first backup your data.

 

Thanks for the reply systemfehler, but it turns out I didn't need to do that. I let stay at the stuck position in safemode and went to bed, and this morning I saw the Windows Log in screen. Now everything works. It is very strange.

 

Well just to be on the safe side - backup your data and check your disk. Faulty sectors can sometimes be rather tricky. Don't know exactly but some disks have reserve sectors which can be used when analyzing/erasing with the manufacturer tools.