Multiple grub menu.lst?

[Charlie Zender]

 > Nothing to do with UUID's, your barking up the wrong tree there.

OK

 > Tell me how your partitions and hard drives are organized.  Do you have
 > only one hard dive as sda?

Yes

 > What partions are your root and boot on?

It's a dedicated linux laptop with one disk.
Here are the fstab and the mount output from the running system:

zender at virga:~$ more /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
/dev/mapper/Ubuntu-root / ext3  defaults,errors=remount-ro 0       1
UUID=b5778bca-8cc1-4494-9707-6667010847c8 /boot ext3 defaults 0 2
/dev/mapper/Ubuntu-swap_1 none  swap    sw              0       2
/dev/cdrom     /media/cdrom0    udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0

root at virga:/etc# mount
/dev/mapper/Ubuntu-root on / type ext3 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devshm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc 
(rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)

 > How were you able to check your menu.lst if you can't boot?

It does boot automatically into the old gutsy kernel, 2.6.22, not into
the 2.6.24 hardy kernel.

/boot/grub/menu.lst contains 2.6.24 kernels as the default options.
However, the boot screen that appears on the console during the
boot sequence does not reflect the contents on /boot/grub/menu.lst.
The boot screen options are the feisty and gutsy kernels.
I do not know where the list of kernels comes from.
It is not /boot/grub/menu.lst.
Perhaps I am somehow mounting the
/boot partition with old kernel list first, and then the / filesystem
mounts second, and it contains a /boot directory which "masks" the
original /boot partition. This would explain the discrepancy between
the menu.lst presented during boot-up and the menu.lst in /boot/grub.

 > If I get a clear picture in my head of how your system is set up, I can
 > show you the exact commands to fix it.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

Charlie

-- 
Charlie Zender, Department of Earth System Science, UC Irvine
Sab. at CNRS/LGGE-Grenoble until 20080815 :) 011+33+476+824236
Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement
54 rue Molière BP 96, 38402 Saint Martin d'Hères Cedex, France