DUAL BOOT problem - UBUNTU-7.04 WITH WIN XP RPO

 I'm sorry I can not specefically comment on your 'strange happening', but the first place I would begin to troubleshoot this issue would be in the bios settings. Every computer is a little different, but most can be accessed during the boot routine by pressing a 'f-key'; on my computer I believe it is F10.  Take your time, read through all of the options and settings.  Keep your eyes open for anything out of the ordinary that might possibly relate to the way in which your computer boots.

 Next, I would question how you went about setting up the partitions for the seperate filesystems.  Did you manually partition your drive, THEN install ubuntu, and if so, what file system did you format the partition to?  Knowing this could help us figure this out.  If you partitioned the drive yourself, before the install and a files system like ext4, this could be the problem because ext4 does not hold boot records, it has many many great features as a file system, but is not intended to be used as a booting filesystem, ext2 is what should be used for Linux boot partitions.  If you happen to have a "live cd" or "live usb" of a Linux distro, take a look at the partitions and file systems used for each task, this could provide some useful clues.

My personal method for adding Ubuntu to dual boot on existing Windows machines goes as follows: 1) Delete all unwanted files. (not file system files, user files for your Windows system): Things like old zip files, movies/music/media files, anything you no longer need or want that are simply taking up space in your drive. 2) Uninstall all software yoy KNOW you will no longer use. Examples of things I will look for first when I do this are as follows: unused toolbars, redundant virus pritection packages, unessential windows components. 4) Using basic Windows utilities, which are mostly found in the control panel, I clean the file system, repair any existing file system problems, then defragment the hard drive.

 I do it in this order because I do not want to spend the time defragmenting files I no longer need or use.  After defragmenting, you drive will have a large open area without little bits/bytes of Windows files scattered about, which I assume makes for an easy automatic install for Ubuntu. I let ubuntu create the partitions,  I find it does a fine job all on it's own.  You will be given the option during this process as to how much space on you drive you wish to allocate to partition each OS will use.  Each time I have done this, I usually have to adjust it a bit, as Ubuntu is a bit modest in how much space it gives itself.  I prefer to give Ubuntu more space that it asks for, knowing I will use it more than my old Windows setup.  So, think about how you plan to use each system, and your future storage needs, because it will be harder to adjust this in the future.

If none of this applies to you, I migh suggest you alloocate 65-100 mb blank disk space before the fisrt allocatded sector of your boot partition.  This is where the master boot record resides.  You may have some problems here from formatting the drive multiple times.   I do not fully understand what happens here in this area, but my experience has taught me to leave a little extra room here for the filesystem records.  I also learned that the larger the drive is, the larger the boot records will be.

I understand I have not directly answered your question, but I hope you can fine a clue or new direction of investigation for your issue somewhere in there.  Best of luck, let us know how it works out in the end.

It sounds like you either did something wrong when formatting your hard disk, or you did not install GRUB, the boot loader, correctly. Did you follow a howto?

Since you're talking about C: partitions, I'm guessing that you used a Windows partitioning application. I can only advise to first use Ubuntu's partitioning tool and allocating every needed partition for Ubuntu and Windows there. Afterwards, install Windows in the partition you prepared, and then install Ubuntu in the other partitions you prepared.

If you're sure that you have partitioned and installed correctly, reinstall GRUB.

Windows NT (XP, Vista, 7, Server versions) all use NTLDR (NT Loader) and Linux uses lilo, or grub (legacy is version 1), or gub2 (newest grub version 2). NTLDR cannot see Linux/ext file systems, but grub or grub2 can see FAT/NTFS file systems and Windows......

All that being said, yes, having Windows loaded first and then installing Linux second, is the best way to do it on a dual-boot system; however I question the use of such an old distribution as Ubuntu 7.04 which isn't even an LTS (Long Term Support) version and reached EOL (End Of Life) for support a long, long, long time ago. Ubuntu used grub (version 1) until Ubuntu 8.10 with Ubuntu 9.04 being the first versuon of Ubuntu to use grub2.

Now, finally to add onto this, I think use a non-LTS version of Ubuntu (which is really a mid-term release every 6 months which introduces new code because it's really a beta for the next LTS version,) is a bad idea. Ubuntu 6.06LTS reached EOL long ago, Ubuntu 8.04LTS reaches EOL on April 28th, 2011, a mere 10 days from this posting of mine, and the current LTS release, Ubuntu 10.04.2LTS is the one I'd recommend for two reasons:

1) It's an LTS release so it's far more stable than a non-LTS release is....and 2) It's the current LTS release and thus supported for 3 years total on the desktop until April 2013. (support meaning newer code, security updates, compatability, etc....)

If someone were to ask me for support for say Windows 3.1.1 or Windows95/98/2000 or any old OS, even with XP, I'd still recommend using the latest OS possible for the sake of support, newer code/compatability, security, etc.