System doesn't boot after installation

[Rabenschwinge]

I've tried to install Ubuntu 11.10 from a 64-bit Desktop CD onto an external harddrive, /dev/sdb during installation. When I was asked where I want the bootloader installed I chose /dev/sdb's master boot record. I don't want Ubuntu to touch the internal hard drive, not at all.

When I choose that drive in BIOS as startup device the only thing I see is a blinking cursor. No message from GRUB, not even an error message.

It might be so that the order of the drives changed, and that the drive that is booted from is always the first device... but I am not sure and even if so I wouldn't know how to fix that in the GRUB installer.

In posts in different forums I was asked to let an analyzis script for GRUB run, the result are posted here:
http://pastebin.com/ubc5xqgi

Does anyone have a suggestion where to go from here?

[carl4926]

What you should do is install with the external as first boot device and leave it this way.
Probably quicker for you to do that

[darkod]

It looks fine. Have you tried running the cd in live mode to see if it works fine?

The black screen might be a video issue. Usually the same would happen if you try to boot live mode, if the problem is the video.

[Rabenschwinge]

@carl
I cannot change the order of individual drives in the BIOS, I can only change the order in which it looks for a possibility to boot.

Even when I put USB Sticks & Drives in front of the internal drive in the boot sequence, and then force it to actually start from a CD, the internal drive is /dev/sda and the external one /dev/sdb... It just might be that that is not so if I actually start from /dev/sdb.

The only way I see to force this is to remove the internal drive... in which case I would loose the warrenty for the computer.

@darkod
The screen isn't just black, there is a blinking cursor. Absolutely nothing happens. No message that GRUB starts, no message that the kernel is being loaded, no drive activity.

I can start from the live cd and even chroot into the system if I like, but I cannot start the system itself.

You must take into account that the error condition, if it is as I suspect, only occurs when you're actually trying to boot from the target device, /dev/sdb during installation. The dump was created after booting from a life CD, thus, it is expected to look fine, yet the error exists.

[carl4926]

You could just use a Utility CD to boot with
Like SuperGrubDisk