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yeasterday I installed Lubuntu on the laptop of one family. They had already Windows 7. I shrinked one of its partitions, so that I could free 40 GB and I installed Lubuntu on it. When I was there dual boot was working perfectly.

This evening they phoned me that when they start the computer its slowed down and freezing, so I will have to go to them and repair it. I haven't seen such a problem so far. Could you help me how to solve it?

thank you

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    Dual boot on a family laptop where nobody in the family is a geek. Sounds like a great idea. Mar 10, 2011 at 11:09
  • One of the operating systems got corrupted. Slow-downs and freezing has nothing to do with dual-boot configurations. Mar 10, 2011 at 11:17
  • Their son is a little geek.
    – xralf
    Mar 10, 2011 at 11:22

2 Answers 2

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You may have destroyed the Win7 partition. Use the Live CD and create say two partitions for Windows. For Lubuntu, create a Linux partition for the root and a small Linux swap partition. Restart the computer and install Win7 on one of the two Windows partitions. After that, install Lubuntu in the Linux partitions.

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  • Doesn't explain the symptoms. A "destroyed" Windows partition wouldn't cause the computer to slow down and freeze. It would just prevent the computer from booting into Windows. Mar 10, 2011 at 11:23
  • >>You may have destroyed the Win7 partition. It was not Win7 partition. I splited the C partition into two partition C and E and I installed Lubuntu on E partition. So, where is the problem? This was working normally with Windows XP. </br> Would it be possible to repair it without Windows reinstallation?
    – xralf
    Mar 10, 2011 at 11:28
  • I was resizing the partition according to this link help.ubuntu.com/community/HowtoResizeWindowsPartitions#Windows Disk Management and then installed Lubuntu side by side with Win7. Everything looks correct. Is there a mistake somewhere?
    – xralf
    Mar 10, 2011 at 11:37
  • This is the beggining of the steps I used help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot#Install Ubuntu after Windows
    – xralf
    Mar 10, 2011 at 11:38
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If it is booting into Windows 7, then you may not have destroyed the installation. Disable the hibernate option and set the Windows swap file on another free partition if possible. Delete the hibernate file from Windows or from Linux. Defragment the C drive from Safe mode. After restart enable the hibernate option. The hibernate file and the swap file are very big and may have got chewed up when you shrunk the partition.

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  • I visited the family and I was surprised that everything was OK. They only complainted that they can't view some facebook messages in Win7, it was strange. I choosed Lubuntu after restart and the same problem, some facebook messaged couldn't be viewed.
    – xralf
    Mar 11, 2011 at 6:49
  • They had the possibility in Win7 to turn the notebook back to the factory state, so we've chosen it (naturally we've backed up all their data), but after a few restarts the boot was looping (it stoppend always before choise of OSs and then restart). The problem was, that they don't have original Win7 DVD to make an installation, so I installed them only Lubuntu. They are not satisfied a lot, but they should buy original Win7 DVD. I can't do nothing else, or is there some better possibility?
    – xralf
    Mar 11, 2011 at 6:50
  • @xralf: The first question is why you're repairing their computer if you don't know any more than this. The second question is why their computer didn't come with a CD/DVD containing the operating system. Call the manufacturer and request a copy—if the computer included an OEM version of Windows when they bought it, they paid for it, and they have a right to get that copy. Do not buy another Windows DVD, that's just nonsense. When you have the Windows DVD in hand, reformat and repartition the drive before reinstalling. Don't leave empty partitions and corrupted boot sectors. Mar 11, 2011 at 7:57
  • Why? They wanted to try Linux, because they heard that it's better and faster and I can confirm it, I'm using Linux and wouldn't convert back to Windows. So, I installed them two OSs side by side. There was no problem. But they are very mollycoddle and accustomed to Windows and lazy to choose between two in boot. The problem with Facebook made them believe that its the fault of Linux. Their son launched the proccess which convert the notebook to factory state, but this havent happened (probably because of dual boot and partitioning).
    – xralf
    Mar 11, 2011 at 8:26
  • I have a feeling that they had cheaper laptop and the Home edition of Windows 7 does work only until they partition a harddrive and try other OS, but I will ask them.
    – xralf
    Mar 11, 2011 at 8:28

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