After upgrading Lucid (10.04) to Maverick (10.10) system does not boot (blinking cursor)

[Andi Meier]

Two days ago, I tried to upgrade to Maverick (server version) using
  sudo do-release-upgrade

All went well, but on the first reboot after the installation the PC hangs with 
grub prompt:
  error: the symbol grub_xputs not found

I guess it has something to do with my RAID1 setup:
  sda1/sdb1 ........ RAID1, bootable (system partition, 20 GB)
  sdc1 ............. swap partition
  sda2/sdb2/sdc2 ... RAID2 (data partition, 3 TB)

I made a bootable (using UNetbootin) USB pen drive with 10.10 desktop on it and 
booted into this desktop version.
After
  mdadm --assemble --scan
I could successfully access (and mount) my RAID1 and RAID5 drives.

However, the system itself does not boot.


... another thing: after only having mounted /dev/md0 and browsed in the 
contents, the boot behavior has changed: now the PC does not end up
in the grub prompt "the symbol grub_xputs not found", but instead a blank black 
screen with a blinking cursor left top is shown. Keyboard:
no reaction (I tried Enter, Esc, any keys ... no reaction, just a blinking 
cursor).


Then, I tried:
  - boot into USB pen drive 10.10 desktop
  - mdadm --assemble --scan ... result: /dev/md0 is available (the RAID1 of 
sda1 and sdb1)
  - mount /dev/md0 /mnt/md0
  - in /mnt/mnd0/boot/grub/grub.cfg: I replaced the kernel file names by the 
current ones:
      2.6.32-22-server ----> 2.6.35-24-server
  - reboot: still only a blinking cursor

  - then:
  - boot into USB pen drive 10.10 desktop
  - grub-install --root-directory /mnt/md0 /dev/sda
    ... a message prints: no problems encountered
  - grub-install --root-directory /mnt/md0 /dev/sdb
    ... a message prints: no problems encountered
  - reboot: still only a blinking cursor


So at the moment I end up with a system which does not boot but gives me a 
blinking cursor.

Any help appreciated!

Thanks,
Andi