[ale] error booting XP after dual boot install of Ubuntu 7.10

[Daniel Howard]

Well, after lots of great advice from this group, and some checking 
around, I think Robert is the closest to what happened.  I tried Aaron's 
suggestion of reinstalling Ubuntu but manually partitioning and removing 
the Recovery partition, and instead of "Disk error" when selecting M$ to 
boot, it just hangs.  So, since I can see the drive from Ubuntu, I 
looked at it and noticed that it was only using half the space it 
originally had, so somehow in the process of repartitioning it and/or 
running the Recovery s/w, it hosed something critical to booting.  I can 
still see the files, but can't find my dad's user name Desktop/My 
Documents, so that must have been hosed too.  Summary of advice I've 
seen for dual boot is:
	0.  Use separate HD for Linux if possible to leave Win HD completely 
alone.  If only one HD is available, then:
	1.  Back up all user files, even the ones the user might have put in 
non typical locations.
	2.  Defrag hard drive
	3.  Create new partition using Windoze software to resize existing 
Windoze partition.
	4.  Install Linux

The good news, is that he's really happy with Ubuntu, and the new 
freedom to get more software has emboldened him to ask me to put a 
speech recognition package (his typing is slow, and to help him out of 
his funk after my mom died, I had him writing down interesting life 
stories) and he also wants me set up Skype for video conferencing with 
my family after he returns to Memphis.  Skype has Linux versions, so I'm 
not worried about that, but Linux speech recognition is not there, so 
I'm going to try my old copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking under Wine 
after seeing web reports of others that got it to work under Ubuntu.

It has really been fun watching my dad change his view about what he can 
do with a computer.  We tried to look up a LUG in Memphis for him and 
their web link is dead, and he said "Maybe I'll start one!"  Now he's 
asking me if I'll help him learn Python!  I've created a monster...

Best, and thanks again for all the help,
Daniel

-- 
Daniel Howard
President and CEO
Georgia Open Source Education Foundation