My bios had switched the drive boot sequence for some reason
I had problems with it before showing a msg saying "F1 for configuration restore F2 for new config...etc"
But I never had it change boot device priority before.
Maybe it's a bad battery...
So all that work for nothing...
Thanks for the suggestion though it helped narrowing down the problem
Btw regarding the installation of grub/syslinux on usb :
Doesn't the LiveCD have a bootloader already?
I can see an entry of "boot existing os" and by the "Tab to edit line" I'm guessing its syslinux (never used it tbh).
If so what would a standard grub boot line translate to for syslinux ?
Since I've spent 2-3hours searching the web and trying to fix the problem (with a live usb).
Grub menu doesn't show.
(before I had it with countdown=0 ie skip, but I changed it to 5 and added verbose to the kernel args).
Also by reading the logs I recal something related to gvfs permision error and thunar having a sigterm..
What I have tried doing: (chroot from live usb)
-rebuild initramfs
-install the earlier kernel (3.6.3.1) [as some ppl have reported a bug 4Gigs of ram + 64bit+3.6.4.1]
-reinstall grub
-reconfigure grub
-downgrading nvidia driver 304.60.3->304.60.2 (just in case.... )
I've removed the following:
-initscripts
-consolekit
Some details about the system that might or might not be relevant:
64bit, running on i5 2500k, 8gigs ram, nvidia gtx 570.
Running Openbox + tint + gdm.
I still have no idea what happened to render the system incapable of booting...
So I need for some help figuring that out and how to solve the problem