This is my system topology:

Disk #1  (SATA Internal) 
      C: D: (Windows 7 Ultimate)
Disk #2  (SATA Internal) 
      E: (Windows Backup)
Disk #3  (eSATA External)
      H:  I:   (Other windows data)
      /dev/sdc3  Linux Swap
      /dev/sdc4  Extended partition
      /dev/sdc5  Linux /

So, I originally had there Ubuntu 8.1 from years ago but never got to use it. Now I used the Ubuntu 12.04 Live CD to install on that same location (That live CD takes a century to boot on a 6GB Intel i7 system...).

The installation went fine, I selected it to install on /dev/sdc5 but it never asked me for any boot stuff, where I wanted to install Grub or whatever it is that it uses nowaways (I come from the LILO days when it always worked :-)

So, yet again I can't access my new Linux installation. I have to wait a century to boot the "Live" CD and it allows me to see my new installation but I can't do anything with it.

I tried the approach of this blog post. Copied the linux.bin of /dev/sdc5 into C: and used the BCDEdit steps to declare the new OS.

So when I boot I see the Windows Boot menu and select Linux and after than I only get a black screen with a blinking cursor on the upper left. I can boot into Windows though.

So, perhaps it didn't install the boot code on /dev/sdc5? I used this setup years ago booting from Windows with a BIN file:

dd if=/dev/sdc5 of=/mnt/share/C/linux.bin bs=512 count=1

I am very reluctant to run GRUB because years ago I did and it wiped out my Windows boot sector and took quite some effort to recover it and be able to boot Windows again.

I have been trying to install GRUB on a blank USB stick but I can't find anything clear enough. My system does NOT have a floppy.

So can someone give me some ideas about how to get control of my Ubuntu 12.04 installation?