Install broke everything

[Choragos]

Hello. I just tried to install Kubuntu on my wife's computer. She is running Vista 64. I installed a new HDD (1TB), and ran the Kubuntu 10.04 live CD. The hard drive was not initialized prior to installation. I had three options: install the systems next to each other (both on sda), install kubuntu to a whole drive (which crashed the install choosing sdb), and define partitions manually. OK, so I boldly stepped forth to define them manually.

sdb1 was a ext4 system, using 800 GB, mount point at /. sdb5 was a 35 gb or something swap. I left the rest free. Last step before install, I checked the advanced, and it told me that the bootloader (which I presume to be grub) was to be installed on sda. OK, great. We went forth with apparent success. On reboot, I get the following problems:

The computer boots to what is sda. I get
error: no such device: 1c326...etc.
and it enters grub rescue> which I have no idea how to use. If I try to force it to boot to sdb, it locks up completely. What can I do to (a) return everything to how it was before so my wife doesn't kick me in the netherregions, or (b) fix my installation. I'd love to give you more information but I can't get past the boot screen...

[Choragos]

More information:

I can run the live CD and have a look at the drives. Drive OS (windows, or sda) still has everything there and is great. sdb appears to have a linux file system installed on it. So it appears something is messed up with the grub config, but I don't know enough to fix it!

Thanks all.

[malangaman]

I recommend you take a look at these links:


http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1195275
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7584483

[Choragos]

Thanks! I don't know why but I find grub so complicated.

Reinstalling grub on sdb worked by using the following link:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Re...tallingWindows

The issue was that somehow the uuid wasn't working. Grub seemed to be fine, but referencing sdb1 by it's uuid wasn't getting the job done. Changing it to /media/disk instead of /media/1c....... fixed it.

Thank you.