"Grub loading ...Error 18" - HD's not accessible any more. (Kubuntu Karmic/ WinXP)

[Bas Roufs]

Hello everybody

A few days ago, something went fundamentally wrong at my desktop PC.  The
system gut stuck. The only option left was unplugging the PC and restarting
it. But each following attempt to normally restart the PC already stagnates
in the very beginning as follows:
GRUB Loading stage 1.5
GRUB loading, please wait .....
Error 18
Already after 'Error 18',  nothing happens any more. Every restart attempt
ends up in again 'Error 18'.

My question is now: what can I do to get access to the 2 hard disks in order
to:
* copy the KMAIL address book to the external hard disk;
* compress all the other data files to ZIP archives at the external hard
disk;
.... with a view to repartioning/ reformatting the two HD's and
fresh-installingboth WinXP and Kubuntu
So far, I have tried the following. A few times, I ran a live version of
Kubuntu 9.10 from a USB stick. There, I tried to access the hard disks via
Dolphin. But I do not manage to do so, so far.

I am wondering whether there is some simple workaround in order to rescue
the grub - via a command line?
Respectfully yours,
Bas.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kubuntu-users/attachments/20100329/5c87bf34/attachment.html>