Here is my boot info. What does this tell us?
My BIOS is set to boot from sdb, the Ubuntu disk; sda has Windows XP, and dual-boots correctly but when set to boot from that, I got a grub2 error (different from what you see above, this was a disk not found error accompanied by a grub rescue prompt, which did not even respond to the command which a grub rescue prompt is supposed to know.)
During by Ubuntu install I set my computer -- I think -- to boot from sdb1, although that is a partition and not a physical disk.
So, how do we interpret this?
Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010
============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================
=> Grub 2 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks for
(UUID=f124c634-81d3-416b-926f-27c232871bbd)/boot/grub.
=> Grub 2 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb and looks on the same drive in
partition #1 for /boot/grub.
sda1: __________________________________________________ _______________________
File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows XP
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System: Windows XP
Boot files/dirs: /boot.ini /ntldr /NTDETECT.COM
sdb1: __________________________________________________ _______________________
File system: ext4
Boot sector type: Grub 2
Boot sector info: Grub 2 is installed in the boot sector of sdb1 and
looks at sector 5490631 of the same hard drive for
core.img, core.img is at this location on /dev/sdb and
looks on partition #1 for /boot/grub.
Operating System: Ubuntu 9.10
Boot files/dirs: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab /boot/grub/core.img
sdb2: __________________________________________________ _______________________
File system: Extended Partition
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
sdb5: __________________________________________________ _______________________
File system: swap
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
=========================== Drive/Partition Info: =============================
Drive: sda ___________________ __________________________________________________ ___
Disk /dev/sda: 82.0 GB, 81964302336 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders, total 160086528 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x06e306e2
Partition Boot Start End Size Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 160,071,659 160,071,597 7 HPFS/NTFS
Drive: sdb ___________________ __________________________________________________ ___
Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe28a95a8
Partition Boot Start End Size Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 300,576,149 300,576,087 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 300,576,150 312,576,704 12,000,555 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 300,576,213 312,576,704 12,000,492 82 Linux swap / Solaris
blkid -c /dev/null: __________________________________________________ __________
Device UUID TYPE LABEL
/dev/sda1 1EC8A6D4C8A6AA0B ntfs Local Disk
/dev/sdb1 befe9e86-3e72-4901-857a-3eb7ff7966a0 ext4
/dev/sdb5 6036269d-9307-4ec0-b67e-0d28a0b2f790 swap
============================ "mount | grep ^/dev output: ===========================
Device Mount_Point Type Options
/dev/sdb1 / ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
================================ sda1/boot.ini: ================================
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
=========================== sdb1/boot/grub/grub.cfg: ===========================
#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
if [ -s /boot/grub/grubenv ]; then
have_grubenv=true
load_env
fi
set default="0"
if [ ${prev_saved_entry} ]; then
saved_entry=${prev_saved_entry}
save_env saved_entry
prev_saved_entry=
save_env prev_saved_entry
fi
insmod ext2
set root=(hd1,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set befe9e86-3e72-4901-857a-3eb7ff7966a0
if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
set gfxmode=640x480
insmod gfxterm
insmod vbe
if terminal_output gfxterm ; then true ; else
# For backward compatibility with versions of terminal.mod that don't
# understand terminal_output
terminal gfxterm
fi
fi
if [ ${recordfail} = 1 ]; then
set timeout=-1
else
set timeout=10
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
set menu_color_normal=white/black
set menu_color_highlight=black/white
### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-14-generic" {
recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
set quiet=1
insmod ext2
set root=(hd1,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set befe9e86-3e72-4901-857a-3eb7ff7966a0
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=befe9e86-3e72-4901-857a-3eb7ff7966a0 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
}
menuentry "Ubuntu, Linux 2.6.31-14-generic (recovery mode)" {
recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
insmod ext2
set root=(hd1,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set befe9e86-3e72-4901-857a-3eb7ff7966a0
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=befe9e86-3e72-4901-857a-3eb7ff7966a0 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" {
linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin
}
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)" {
linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8
}
### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
menuentry "Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (on /dev/sda1)" {
insmod ntfs
set root=(hd0,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 1ec8a6d4c8a6aa0b
drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
chainloader +1
}
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
=============================== sdb1/etc/fstab: ===============================
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=befe9e86-3e72-4901-857a-3eb7ff7966a0 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sdb5 during installation
UUID=6036269d-9307-4ec0-b67e-0d28a0b2f790 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
=================== sdb1: Location of files loaded by Grub: ===================
2.8GB: boot/grub/core.img
2.8GB: boot/grub/grub.cfg
.5GB: boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
.5GB: boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic
.5GB: initrd.img
.5GB: vmlinuz