I accidentally unplugged my laptop while I was adjusting my desk and without the battery inside it shut off. This has happened many times before without a problem. However, when I plugged it back in it wouldn't boot. I used one of my Ubuntu LiveCDs to boot into an OS so I could complain on the internet and verify that this was a boot record thing and not a hard drive thing. There is now a Windows partition sitting where my root Ubuntu partition used to be.
You've got to be FUCKING me.
My only guess is that I accidenatlly hit the "media direct" button and the ghost image that Dell installs at the factory decided to overwrite it. I had intentionally wiped this in the Fall of '07 so I have no clue how this happened. Fortunately I have my important data in its own paritions so this shouldn't cost me more than a few hours of reinstalling Linux and hopefully not breaking anything worse.
