Binary package hint: ubiquity
I helped someone who wanted to dual boot his EeePC with Windows 7.
The netbook froze during the installation. No way to install Ubuntu, there seems to be a hardware compatibility problem.
Anyway, the reason for this failure is not the problem here.
It seems (but I'm not sure, please correct me) that grub is installed before the system is copied in the partitions ?
So as the installation failed, the computer was unusable after reboot. I guess the MBR was pointing to the partition where Grub was supposed to be, but as the installation failed, it was pointing on nothing...
From what I remember, it used to be the opposite before: create the partitions, copy the files, THEN install grub. This way, if the installation fails, the computer would still boot on the other operating system.
No need to explain that for this ex-new Ubuntu user, it's not a pleasant experience... Maybe i'm wrong and what happened is totally unrelated, but if that's really the case, it's a bit too risky... If I was not here to assist him, he would have brought the computer back to the computer shop to have it fixed. Surely not a great advertisement for Ubuntu to mess a computer like that.
Oups, sorry for the bad title:
"Unbootable computer iF Ubiquity crashes after grub install?"