installation crashed with boot loader not finding a location to be saved

[Jim]

This might sound a bit confusing. I apologize beforehand.
I had an annoying Windows Starter as an OS to a new laptop so I installed Ubuntu 12.04. Then I found I could install a valid Windows XP Professional but when I did that the bootloader stopped working. I tried installing Ubuntu 12 again, this time on a different partition so as not to overwrite all my documents and saved data in the earlier installation, but the bootloader failed to be installed properly at the end of the process.
I am a total novice at Ubuntu/Linux, but I really want to move away from Windows. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: ubiquity 2.10.16
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-23.36-generic-pae 3.2.14
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-23-generic-pae i686
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu5
Architecture: i386
CasperVersion: 1.315
Date: Tue Jul 3 13:35:36 2012
InstallCmdLine: file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash -- maybe-ubiquity
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release i386 (20120423)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_ZA.UTF-8
 TERM=unknown
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_ZA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: grub-installer
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.