Wrecked bootloader (150L)

In an attempt to set up my Aspire One (1 GB ram, 120 GB hard drive) to dual-boot between Linpus and Kubuntu, I've wrecked my bootloader. The Kubuntu installer gave up trying to install it, apparently halfway done. Now it boots to the logo screen, then stalls.

The partitions seem fine, and I have a recovery flash drive - but I'd like to preseve my files and installed programs, not just return to factury defaults.

Any ideas?

 

At the least you could save your files and such by booting a live distro from usb. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_USB
I'm assuming you can still boot to USB? Try wiping the kubuntu partition and reinstalling it?

Does linpus use Grub as it's bootloader?

 

Saving my files was no major problem. I took the entire system along in the backup like this:

sudo cp -dpR /media/linpus/* /media/AspireOne

where 'AspireOne' is a 60 GB ext2 partition on a stock external 2½" hard drive in a USB enclosure. Worked like a charm.

As to which bootloader is used by the AA1, I actually don't know. It might be a very simple custom one, for the task at hand is known and narrowly defined. A friend of mine who knows better) tried manually installing Grub, but gave up.

Backup secured, I'll now try to install Kubuntu. It's pretty slick off the live CD, and I'd love to have the new OpenOffice.