Computer Booting Issues - Resolved *fingers crossed*

With all my traveling lately, I’ve been turning my computer on and off more often than usual. And it was not working correctly. Somehow, my computer was confusing itself during boot-up. It started out fine but after the “Choose Your OS” screen, I think it was attempting to load both the official install of Ubuntu and the Wubi install at the same time. Which of course doesn’t work and the computer just stops at a blank screen right before the Ubuntu log-on screen. I did leave Wubi on my Windows partition for longer than is probably a good idea (Basically, I hadn’t even thought about my Windows partition since the permanent install and then realized that I had to go in an remove Wubi).

The only way I could get to the log-on screen was to either log into Windows or the Ubuntu-recovery mode and then restart the computer. I have no idea why this worked. I even performed the 'memtest' option available at start-up and found nothing wrong.

I’m a little baffled as to what was going on or why. In general, I try to avoid messing with booting procedures mainly because I know I don’t know enough to risk it. However, during the Wubi and real Ubuntu installs, the booting procedures were modified. I vaguely remember some mention that Wubi uses the Windows boot program but an official Ubuntu install uses another bootloader called GRUB. Maybe they were contradicting one another somehow?

This weekend, I finally broke down and used a program called SuperGrub to repair the booting process. The Ubuntu process is now fine. I can't even get it stuck now if I try. However, Windows is still going to the Wubi "Choose Your OS" page before moving on the Windows start-up. Maybe in order to remove it, I have to uninstall Wubi as opposed to simply deleting it? I found the SuperGrub program via the Ubuntu help forums and I have to say, it's a nifty little tool. I was very hesitant to mess with the bootloader but you have the option to load it "With Help" which basically means for every menu they list all the options and explain what they do. I thought it quite handy.

This wasn’t preventing me from using my computer...I just found it annoying and unsettling. Not to mention, I didn’t want to update to Gutsy (per my 2008 PE Goals) until I got it resolved. *Whew*