Whew! I super love Ubuntu!

I almost fainted yesterday, when I booted my laptop and Windows immediately ran.. I was expecting a boot menu to appear onscreen because I had both Ubuntu and Windows XP on my machine. Panic started creeping in when I checked the directories of my computer and all I could see was my Windows directory.

Whew! I really hated myself for not following my instinct to create a backup first before re-installing my Windows XP. I was uber confident that I won’t do any harm to my Ubuntu partition because I will be reinstalling only on my Windows partition. I could have copied everything – my pictures taken from Manila, Ozamis, Japan, Davao, Mangagoy and GenSan, my exams (and answer keys), handouts, grades… to my external hard disk with just a click but was too lazy and confident (and stubborn) to do that.

Well, I really felt so stupid and it just hit me that I could have lost all the important files from November ’09 to January ’10. I felt like all my blood came out of my body…I was getting dizzy… racking my brains for any solution. I checked my computer again and could only see 20 GB of my hard disk, meaning, there is a possibility that Windows just didn’t recognize my Ubuntu partition…hmmm.. there was hope!!!! 🙂

I rebooted again and again, but still, the boot menu wouldn’t show up. Windows kept on booting itself automatically! Grrr.. Ubuntu didn’t do that when I installed it alongside Windows..It just created a boot menu where I could choose which OS to use.  I knew there was a workaround to the problem but I didn’t want to take all the time to research the Web. It was my first time to encounter the problem and I couldn’t wait ’til Monday to ask all my geek friends at the office how to solve it. I was afraid my insomnia would be back because of a reckless mistake!

So I took my Ubuntu installer and started to “reinstall”, crossing my fingers and praying very hard that it would detect that I already have a previously installed version of Ubuntu…and…

Voila! Yey!!! It did detect that I already have Ubuntu! Haha! So I cancelled the installation and ran Ubuntu from the CD. Through Ubuntu, I was able to see all the files I had on my hard disk – both my Ubuntu 9.10 and Windows XP files. Whew! I immediately copied all my files on my EHD. At least I learned a lot from that experience!

Ubuntu is a real life saver. Thanks!!! I don’t know if I just missed it, but I really wasn’t able to read that Windows detected that I had another OS on my machine. Well, whatever, Ubuntu has earned one vote! 🙂

Just a friendly reminder…BACKUP! BACKUP! BACKUP! before you do anything stupid or critical to your PC.