Windows/Linux dual boot broke linux?

So i recently bought a laptop for college next year and my dad for some reason thinks that setting it up with dual boot linux is a good idea. Well his arrogance got in the way and now vista is broken. I've tried to use an untouched vista copy that was 3.5 gb and a vista recovery from neosmart that was 148 mb niether worked. How do i fix this please help.