New installation failing to take over from old installation

[Chris Green]

On Thu, Jan 03, 2013 at 12:38:11PM +0000, Chris Green wrote:
> > > >    What you describe suggests that the installation process put your new GRUB
> > > >    on the other drive, and when you booted, it went to the old GRUB, which
> > > >    was left untouched on the first drive, but where it pointed was no longer
> > > >    a system.   
> > > > 
> > > That's much what I think too but I'm not sure I was given the
> > > opportunity to decide where to put Grub.  I guess I can try once more
> > > (third time lucky!) and concentrate hard on the Grub installation
> > > questions when they come up.
> > > 
> > Well it says it's found 'other' operating systems (which are the old
> > Ubuntu 11.10 installation) and that if this is all then it's safe to
> > install Grub on the MBR.  So I say 'yes'.
> > 
> > However the result seems to be that I get the *old* grub still.  I'll
> > just go and say 'Yes' to installing Grub on the MBR and see what the
> > result is.
> > 
> ... and the result is the same, I get the Grub menu from the old 11.10
> installation (with the 11.10 being the default boot at the top of the
> list).
> 
> It seems as if the new installation doesn't see the 'first disk' as the
> actual first disk used when the system boots.
> 
That was it!  There are three SATA devices on the system:-

    SATA Channel 1 master - CDROM
    SATA Channel 2 master - 320GB disk A
    SATA Channel 3 master - 320GB disk B

The BIOS had its disk boot order set up such that disk B was *before*
disk A.  However the Lubuntu installation was assuming that Disk A was
the boot disk.

Resetting the BIOS so that the disk boot priority is in the same order
as their pyhsical numbering has sorted things out, lubuntu 12.10 now
boots!

I still don't really understand why the 11.10 installation somehow
managed to boot OK but still it's sorted now.

-- 
Chris Green