Windows reformat and grub gone (noob q)

I reformatted my windows partition the other day and in the process, unbeknown to me it either deleted grub or wiped my linux partition (Ubuntu feisty) b/c now when I boot up it just goes right to booting windows. Is there a way to get grub back, do I have to reinstall it (I don't know how to do that short of reinstalling all of ubuntu)?
I just use linux for a bit of messing around so it have no pressing need to get it back, but I doubt this is the first time Windows has done this to someone so any helf anyone could offer would be great.

 

hmm... I doubt it wiped out your Feisty partition. What probably happened is that it overwrote the MBR and flagged the Window partition is the active boot partition.

What you need to do is put in the Ubuntu CD and run it... then run Gparted so that you can change your current active partition to be your Linux one - the partition that SHOULD have grub installed on it. Then restart and you should see grub...

 

Windows nuked your bootloader. This page has instructions on how to fix it again.

 

After you reinstall the GRUB, do this:
From Linux terminal:
mkdir /media/bootloader
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/bootloader/ubuntu.bin bs=512 count=1

copy ubuntu.bin to USB stick or whatever works for you.

Next time if you format XP partition again just do this:
Star>Control Panel>System>System Restore>Edit
It will open a notepad with bootloader command. At last line, add:
C:ubuntu.bin=Ubuntu Linux

It will let you have the option to jump to GRUB.

 

thanks for the advice guys I got it up and running again.

then i realized that i was having a few things run off my windows partition before like my music library and since I reformatted windows that wasn't all in the exact same place as before and for some reason it isn't letting me access the stuff on that partition like it did before the reformat, when I try to open it or click on the icon in the computer area it doesn't do anything.