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[Kousik Sankar <414996@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>Now I have two problems.....
>>1) how do I get Windows on my laptop to boot again.... I need my work data!
>>2) how do I make my mythbuntu USB front-end install bootable?

Oh yes, I did face that problem sometime back, and though I love Ubuntu,
GRUB needs to improve. I follow the brute force approach only during
fresh installations -- take a */+ screwdriver and remove the primary HDD
and then install Ubuntu. Since I keep upgrading quite frequently,
spending half a day recovering my Windows data is much worse compared to
getting a screwdriver and removing the primary boot.

-- 
[karmic] grub re-writes boot sector on wrong drive on fresh install
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/414996
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Status in Mythbuntu, Ubuntu derivative focused upon MythTV: Invalid
Status in “grub2” package in Ubuntu: Confirmed

Bug description:
I attempted to install mythbuntu karmic/9.10 alpha 4 to a USB drive.   Using a laptop with an IDE drive containing Windows XP, I booted from the ISO image CD-ROM and went through the installation, selecting manual partitioning, and creating a single EXT4 root filesystem on a USB drive.   The installation proceeded through the complete install to the USB key until instructed to reboot.

I re-booted the laptop with the USB key inserted, and was presented with the message "No bootable partition in table".  Then, removing the USB key and booting from the laptop IDE drive (which should not have been touched by the mythbuntu install) I get the message "GRUB loading.  Welcome to GRUB!  Entering rescue mode... error: no such disk"  followed by the "grub rescue>" prompt.  

I examined the laptop hard drive with a partition editor, and the Windows partition is still intact....  but it looks like the boot sector has been re-written mistakenly.

Now I have two problems.....
1) how do I get Windows on my laptop to boot again....  I need my work data!
2) how do I make my mythbuntu USB front-end install bootable?