[ale] Linux install breaking windows?

[John Anderson]

I installed mint side by side on my nephews computer up in NY about 
three weeks ago. I defaulted the boot to windows to not force the issue. 
I had some minor issues on install where the toolbars wouldn't show up 
in the gnome desktop. Installing other desktops appeared to fix the 
issue for some reason. I left him running KDE.

Windows apparently worked for at least a week after I left. For the past 
week however, Windows blue-screens on boot. It also blue-screens in all 
safe mode options. They do at least get as far as the screen asking 
which safe mode option to choose.

Now, if someone described these symptoms to me on a Windows only box I 
would guess hardware failure. However the mint partition is working and 
my nephew is using that in the meantime. He doesn't seem to mind except 
he can't run some of his games.

Now, the only thing that I really 'did' was that I did use the 
repartition tool to make room for mint linux - something that I haven't 
actually done that often so I don't know how common problems are.

There is also the question that maybe the toolbar issue that I had 
relates to an issue with the video card, as opposed to a video driver 
issue which was my working theory.

So- anyone have any issues with repartitioning a windows drive causing 
windows to bluescreen?

Does it seem plausible that it could be a hardware issue- given that 
Mint seems to run OK?

The Ntfs partion can't be mounted from the file manager GUI inside Mint- 
is there  a way to force it on the command line?

Is this perhaps related to a virus/rootkit on the windows side?

Might fsck help?