Bug#598961: Had to manually rerun grub-install --force, perhaps due to kernel upgrade

[Richard Kettlewell]

Package: grub-pc
Version: 1.98+20100804-5

My unstable/sid system failed to boot, with (IIRC) "GRUB GRUB hard disk 
error" displayed after the BIOS.  It had previously been booting just 
fine with grub-pc (after upgrading from lenny).  There might have been 
kernel upgrade since the last successful boot, I couldn't say for sure.

In at attempt to repair it I booted off an Ubuntu karmic live CD and 
chroot'd into the installed system.  I check device.map and it looked 
correct.  I ran grub-install --force /dev/sda (and /dev/sdb, not that 
the BIOS tries to boot off that disk anyway).  I used --force because 
the partition layout on this machine requires it.

I then ran apt-get dist-upgrade.  This included a kernel upgrade.

The next attempt to boot also failed, but with just "GRUB" appearing 
after the BIOS.

I used the live CD in the same way as above, except without any 
upgrading, and re-ran grub-install.

After this, attempting to boot worked fine.

Sorry this isn't much to go on!  At a wild guess the kernel upgrade is 
botching some grub-related step, perhaps that only matters when 
blocklists are in use.

ttfn/rjk