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Due to work related reasons I had to install Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on my computer. I have an SSD with Windows 7 and decided to buy a 1TB HDD and partition it to install Ubuntu on it and leave some space for my larger windows files. I followed the Ubuntu installation tutorial on the ubuntu official site and at first everything was ok.

Then, the first problem with Ubuntu arose: the Wifi connection was incredibly slow while on windows it was normal. I read that this was some kind of bug from Ubuntu so apparently there was nothing to do.

The next day I realised it took much ( much) longer than usual to boot on Windows 7, - it approximately takes less than 1 minute and it took almost 7 minutes-. Once logged in I also realised Windows 7 took much longer to open files and programs. What's more, when I tried to copy files(write) into the free allocated space I left on the HDD, the copy menu didn't even show up. I couldn't even copy files on my SSD!

As soon as I reformatted the HDD ( hence removing Ubuntu) my system worked as normal. I repartitioned the HDD to leave space for files but haven´t installed Ubuntu and there hasn't been any problems.

However, I still need Ubuntu and I don't want to try to install it again like last time and work me up trying to figure out what is wrong with it. So I hope someone could shed some light on this matter and every bit of help is truly appreciated.

PS: I find worth mentioning that I have previously searched the Internet for the answers to these problems but nothing was helpful

Thank you!

almb
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    is Win7 installed in BIOS or EFI mode? and is the SSD partitioned MBR or GPT? also is AHCI enabled? – ravery Sep 28 '17 at 13:36
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    Well that's very odd. What happens if you boot the Ubuntu install media and use Gparted to repartition the HDD as ext4 and once again leave some space as ntfs for Windows without actually installing Ubuntu? Then does Win7 still take a long time to boot? – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit Sep 28 '17 at 13:36
  • A possible solution is to install Ubuntu into an external drive, that you connect only when you need Ubuntu, not when you run Windows. Then it will not affect Windows. The installation is easiest and safest if you disconnect (unplug) the internal drive(s) before you install Ubuntu, and plug it back after you have finished installing and shut down the computer. See this link, https://askubuntu.com/questions/786986/boot-ubuntu-from-external-drive/942312#942312 – sudodus Sep 28 '17 at 13:38
  • @ravery , Windows7 is in BIOS mode with the SSD partitioned MBR and ATA enabled from the two options( ATA or RAID). – almb Sep 28 '17 at 14:15
  • @Android Dev no, i haven't tried that, I used dskmgmt to partition and then the ext3 partitions, swap etc using the ubuntu installer ( mounted on usb with Rufus installer). – almb Sep 28 '17 at 14:20
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    @sudodus I was thinking of doing that as well but I haven't got USB 3.0 and I used this method before and Ubuntu was slow and got freezed at times, so I will resort to this method if i can't find any other alternative. Thank you anyway! – almb Sep 28 '17 at 14:21
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    @alejandro - It is possible Win7 did not like the way the HDD was partitioned. Try setting up the partions using Windows. then install Ubuntu using the "Manual Configuration" option, and tell Ubuntu which partitions to use for what. – ravery Sep 28 '17 at 14:32
  • @ravery that is exactly what I did the first time, I used the diskmgmt utility to set partitions and then through the manual configuration of the ubuntu installer to create the root, swap and home partitions. – almb Sep 28 '17 at 14:37
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    @alejandro - and you left the partitions unmounted in windows? ie no drive letter? if the partition is marked with a drive letter in disk management, Win7 will try to read/scan it and fail. – ravery Sep 28 '17 at 14:42
  • @ravery Honestly i do not remember how I did that, what I know is that I assigned a drive letter to my partition designated for files and when I opened windows I couldn't explore Ubuntus's partition, it didn´t appear on hard drives or file systems – almb Sep 28 '17 at 14:51
  • @alejandro "I couldn't explore Ubuntus's partition, it didn´t appear on hard drives or file systems" well that's to be expected - Windows can't read Linux filesystems – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit Sep 28 '17 at 14:53
  • @Android Dev Yes, I knew, maybe my answer was a bit vague, what I implied by saying so is that I think I partitioned my HDD correctly ( thus my answer of not being able to explore Linux's filesystems on Windows) and still I had that problem – almb Sep 28 '17 at 14:57
  • @alejandro, a USB 2 pendrive will be slow, mainly due to slow flash memory, but a fast USB 3 pendrive or a USB hard disk drive or USB solid state drive will perform much better even in a USB 2 port of the computer. And a light-weight Ubuntu community flavour (Lubuntu, Ubuntu MATE or Xubuntu) will be faster than standard Ubuntu .-- But it is certainly worthwhile to continue troubleshooting like you are doing with ravery and Android Dev: please test what they suggest in the comments and tell us the result. Good luck :-) – sudodus Sep 28 '17 at 15:09
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    Windows 7 search indexing might be enabled. It could be indexing your new 1TB disk. – 88weighed Sep 28 '17 at 18:13
  • @alejandro - the question isn't about whether you partitioned correctly. it's about whether Windows is trying to scan partitions it can't read. In other words, if it has drive letters for the ubuntu partitions, it will try to mount and possibly attempt a chkdisk etc when booting. resulting in a slow boot. – ravery Sep 28 '17 at 23:41
  • @ravery There wasn´t any letter assigned to the ubuntu partition last time. Anyways, I apparently have solved the problem. I redownloaded 16.04LTS, formatted again my HDD ( only made one ntfs partition ) and the rest was unassigned. I ran the ubuntu installation proceeding to allocate that free space to this OS and there hasn´t been any problems yet. Everything runs smooth as per usual. Thank you very much for everyone's help! – almb Sep 29 '17 at 10:07
  • ah yes, some computers require a recovery partition at the start of an internal disk. it can be blank and small but has to be there – ravery Sep 29 '17 at 10:10

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