I tried the live boot CD and boot-repair, also loaded the Desktop install CD, and it looks like all partitions check out OK. However, when I try to boot Linux (the only bootable partition on the computer) I get a blank screen.

Every so often the screen give me something akin to: Assuming write through cache Asking for cache data failed

it appears to start booting, then hangs. Ctrl+Alt+Delete shuts down the machine

The last message during boot is "STarting TiMidity++ ALSA midi emulation... [OK]"

I used boot-repair to generate a boot info report. One thing looks odd to me- it reports a missing core.img on /dev/sda1. Here is the full info:

Boot Info Script 0.61.full + Boot-Repair extra info [Boot-Info August 2nd 2012]

============================= Boot Info Summary: ===============================

=> Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks at sector 1 of the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks for (,msdos1)/boot/grub on this drive. => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb.

sda1: __________________________________________

File system:       ext4
Boot sector type:  Grub2 (v1.99)
Boot sector info:  Grub2 (v1.99) is installed in the boot sector of sda1 
                   and looks at sector 18406911 of the same hard drive 
                   for core.img, but core.img can not be found at this 
                   location.
Operating System:  Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS
Boot files:        /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab 
                   /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf /boot/grub/core.img

sda2: __________________________________________

File system:       Extended Partition
Boot sector type:  -
Boot sector info: 

sda5: __________________________________________

File system:       swap
Boot sector type:  -
Boot sector info: 

sdb1: __________________________________________

File system:       ntfs
Boot sector type:  Windows XP: NTFS
Boot sector info:  No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System:  
Boot files:        

============================ Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda _______________________________________

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System

/dev/sda1 * 63 307,339,514 307,339,452 83 Linux /dev/sda2 307,339,515 312,576,704 5,237,190 5 Extended /dev/sda5 307,339,578 312,576,704 5,237,127 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Drive: sdb _______________________________________

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System

/dev/sdb1 2,048 625,142,447 625,140,400 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS

"blkid" output: ____________________________________

Device UUID TYPE LABEL

/dev/loop0 squashfs
/dev/sda1 11b4d633-7863-40b2-a6ca-da5f82c3ad0b ext4
/dev/sda5 cb8d65f4-8cf9-4088-b804-e3dea2151033 swap
/dev/sdb1 349E7C109E7BC8BE ntfs Personal1

================================ Mount points: =================================

Device Mount_Point Type Options

/dev/sdb1 /media/Personal1 fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions) /dev/sr0 /live/image iso9660 (ro,noatime)

...(a bunch of config file info- let me know if anyone wants to see it!)

But usually I just get "Cannot Display This Video Mode", which I know means the video output is not usable by the monitor.

I'm looking for a way to get into a recovery mode.I'd really like to avoid wiping the drive.

Any thoughts?