[PLUG] reinstalling grub

[Art Alexion <art.alexion@verizon.net>]

I have been frustrated in my efforts to revive my Kubuntu Hardy system.  While 
I am hoping that grub is the sole issue, there is an unlikely possibility 
that there is a problem with the primary SATA hard drive.  The drive (sda) 
has three partitions: sda1=/boot, sda2=/, and sda5=swap.  sda1 & 2 are ext3, 
sda1 being primary and sda2, LVM.

I tried restoring grub by booting a feisty or gutsy alternate install disk, 
using the restore boot and executing 'grub-install /dev/sda1'.  It would 
find /boot and then hang.  Eventually I found a pseudo-gui ncurses "install 
grub feature that seemed to work, but when I tried booting, it got stuck 
repeating "Loading stage 2".  

Thinking this may be related to trying to use an older version than currently 
installed on the hard drive I burnt hardy regular and alternate install 
disks.  The alternate install seemed to freeze on 'grub-install /dev/sda1', 
and the gui-like command wanted to partition the drive first.  
The 'ls /dev/sda<tab> showed the partitions, and the partitioner saw them as 
well.  The lvm '/' partition showed up twice, as sda2 and 
as /dev/mapper/chubby/root.

Booting from the regular live install gave me access to the full array of 
command line to run grub-install, but from konsole, the command failed, with 
the error that it couldn't fine /boot.  Konqueror's media:/ kio saw the boot 
partition and mounted it, showing all the files that I expected there.  It 
did not show the kvm '/' partition.

I gound a web page that suggested running
# grub
> root (hd0,0)
> setup (hd0)
grub found hd0 with the <tab>, but couldn't find boot.  I went through and 
tried all of the hd's incase sda was't hd0 (there is also an hda on the 
system) with the same result.

Yep, I don't have a recent backup of /home and didn't save it in a separate 
partition, so I don't want to repartition and blast everything.

Please give me your thoughts on the following points:

* Is there something I am missing in the above steps?
* Does the lvm have something to do with my problem?
* I'd like to try backing up the "/" partition and reinstalling the system, 
but wonder about the easiest way to do this as the live CD doesn't see it.
* Would knoppix do any of this better? I don't have a copy at home.
* any other suggestions?

I'll appreciate any help anyone can offer.

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