Hmm. Sometimes old BIOSes can't boot files past the 1023rd cylinder. What can happen is that initially after the install, all the data needed by grub to boot falls below that limit. However it could be that after installing a new kernel/upgrading your distro has caused some of the needed data to be beyond cylinder 1023 and thus a problem occurs.
I am working on the idea that BIOSes after a certain date won't manifest this problem... -- Regression: grub - Error 18 sometimes since edgy https://launchpad.net/bugs/79578 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
