Hi again,
Yesterday I uninstalled my NVIDIA drivers of old using the program CCleaner (add/remove programs wouldn't locate those). Immediately following i could no longer open any of my games due to graphics driver errors and the messages said one option is to try to restart to resolve. i did not restart right away.
Another thing i did yesterday was run a defrag using auslogics disk defrag. Halfway through i paused the session so my wife could do some facebook browsing, then resumed. I checked the option to shut down computer after it's finished.
This morning Windows 8 no longer boots. I've reset the bios, reset the SMC (unplugged, held power, plugged back in), restarted several times, no dice. I have been able to somewhat boot into ubuntu (no UI though). I tried Windows 8 automatic repair which said it failed.
Reading online there's possibly an issue with windows8 fast boot contributing, but no way I've found online how to disable it if you can't log in.
I guess I'm stuck here and wondering if there's a way out of this.