Phillip,
   After my last response I was able to get it to boot from /dev/mmcblk0p1 using Ubuntu 10.10.  I am not sure why it did not work at first, but maybe my explaining what I did may help you determine why.
The following is what I did. 

1.  I installed Ubuntu 10.10 on a USB  thumb drive, and placed the Grub loader on the MBR.  The boot menu did
     display OK and I was able to boot Ubuntu 10.10 from the drive OK.  The menu did show the previous version 
     of Ubuntu on /dev/mmcblk0p1 but I was never able to get it to boot.

2.  After I received your note requesting a test of using Ubuntu 10.10, I installed Ubuntu 10.10 on 
     /dev/mmcblk0p1 and placed the grub loader on the /dev/sdb which is the MBR of my thumb drive from step 1.
     This was to ensure that the Grub menu would be updated for this version of Ubuntu.

3.  I tried booting from the thumb drive in step 1 but the Grub menu never displayed.  Instead I got the message 
     I reported in my previous note and was place in the Grub rescue screen.

4.  After not being able to restore the MBR, I reinstalled Ubuntu 10.10 to the USB thumb drive and placed the 
     grub loader on the MBR as I had done in step 1.

5.  When I booted from the thumb drive, the Grub menu displayed included both the system installed in step 4 and step 2. I am now able to select either system and they boot OK.


I hope the above sequence better explains what I did and what went wrong.  I am not sure why what happened in step 4 did not happen in step 2 as far as setting up the Grub menu.

Regards,
       Robert.



> Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2010 00:25:48 +0000
> From: <email address hidden>
> To: <email address hidden>
> Subject: [Bug 505396] Re: /dev/mmcblk0p1 does not have any corresponding BIOS	drive
> 
> ** Changed in: grub-installer (Ubuntu)
>        Status: Incomplete => New
> 
> -- 
> /dev/mmcblk0p1 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/505396
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
> 
> Status in “grub-installer” package in Ubuntu: New
> 
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: ubiquity
> 
>  I was in the process of installing Ubuntu 9.04 to a 16GB SDHC card.  The install was to put the Grub boot loader on a 4GB  USB thumb drive that has Ubuntu 9.10.  The grub install failed, I do not know why.  I have tried installing Ubuntu 9.10 on the SDHC card but that fails with portions of the file system missing (eg nothing in the proc folder or incomplete dev folder).
> 
> ProblemType: Crash
> Architecture: amd64
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
> ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity
> InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python2.6
> MediaBuild: Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" - Release amd64 (20090420.1)
> Package: ubiquity 1.12.12
> ProcAttrCurrent: unconfined
> ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity --only
> ProcEnviron:
>  LANGUAGE=
>  PATH=(custom, no user)
>  LANG=en_US.UTF-8
> PythonArgs: ['/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity', '--only']
> SourcePackage: ubiquity
> Title: ubiquity crashed with InstallStepError in configure_bootloader()
> Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic x86_64
> UserGroups:
> 
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub-installer/+bug/505396/+subscribe