REWRITE of " Recovering from _misinstall_ of GRUB 1.98"

[Richard Owlett]

I've received "on list" and "off list" replies which 
demonstrate that where I did not confuse the reader I 
inspired them to answer questions I wasn't asking. So I'll 
do a complete rewrite using high school journalism questions 
of 50+ years ago.

Who  - a Linux newbie
What - two computers - WinXP Pro installed, BIOS allows 
booting from USB device
       a Lenovo (IBM) ThinkCentre whose only internet 
connection is dialup
       a Lenovo (IBM) ThinkPad with dialup and WiFi 
connectivity
       "live cd" of Ubuntu 10.10 (includes GNU GRUB version 
1.98)
       a blank USB stick
Goal - Linux on a bootable USB stick such that I could 
seamlessly switch between
       machines depending on which was more convenient 
without context loss.
*RESTRICTION* - _NOTHING_ written to hard drive (no dual boot)!

Attempted installation by following menu prompts. I was 
allowed to install to a removable device and specify that 
all of the space on that device was to be used. My 
assumption (which proved false) was if an OS was to placed 
on a removable device, it would be bootable.

Symptoms:
1. on system boot a menu is presented offering choice of OS.
   *FAILURE* project specification was "no dual boot"!
2. when forced to dual boot was not given option of 
specifying default OS.
3. when USB stick not inserted boot fails although BIOS is 
told to boot from
   internal hard drive - expectation of booting Windows. 
Grub crashes to "rescue mode".
4. when USB stick is inserted in second machine and BIOS 
instructed to boot
   from external device - it doesn't.

Diagnosis:
1. Grub installed to hard drive where it *does NOT belong*.
2. Grub *NOT* installed to USB stick where it is needed.


Original requests:
How to remove grub from hard drive and repair MBR if required?
How to get grub unto USB stick?

MS Windows Recovery Disk is option of last resort for first 
due to data loss danger.

I've been led to a temporary solution of second by booting 
up usb Ubuntu and at terminal
$ sudo grub-install /dev/sdb

It "functions", if strangely. The menu "allows" booting from 
copy of Ubuntu of USB stick or booting copy of Windows on a 
machine that may be miles away ;/

In response to Mr. Dupree, I've a copy of SystemRescueCD and 
a collection of LiveCd's of several Linux distros.