Comment 3 for bug 8978

I know what the problem is with the HPT370/372 case. The controller writes to the boot drive in the area of
the disk (first cylinder?) and grub also wants to write to the first 16 sectors. From what I read in a post on
the grub mailing list it seems like the location might vary, possibly depending on the controller bios version
being used. I don't remember the exact details of the location of the bytes on my system, I can post that in a
follow up email if needed. Basically to work around the problem you need to take the grub modified stage1_5
(before its corrupted) and write it past where the bios writes to the disk. Then run the grub install command
telling it where the stage1_5 is located on disk. You can alternately install stage1 to a floppy which seems
to solve the problem as well.

As far as the problem with the laptop is concerned I have no idea. It would probably be a good idea to try
installing grub and then dumping the sectors, after a reboot, to compare to see if the bios writes in the same
area as well.

Here is the post that I read that explained how to fix the problem:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-grub/2004-07/msg00113.html

This post explains how to use a floppy for stage1:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-grub/2003-04/msg00026.html