Comment 8 for bug 959890

In answer to comment #4:

Ubuntu 11.10 fails as per AMD64 boot in the initial post except that the GRUB version is
- GRUB screen version 1.99-12ubuntu5

The big surprise (for me) was that Ubuntu 11.04 works:
- BIOS welcome screen from Lenovo
- in the upper left corner, you get the following white text: error: prefix is not set
- you then get GRUB screen version 1.99~rc1-13ubuntu3 with 3 options: try, install, check disc
- select try
- get rather large ubuntu splash screen with animated dots
- get a successful boot to gnome 2 classic desktop
- system monitor indicates about 400MiB RAM required, about double i386 value
- system monitor recognizes 4 cores
- on shutdown, you get a screen full of text messages