Grub will not currently compile on 64 bit distros. Try compiling with a 32 bit live cd or a 32 bit VM (you can try virtualbox.org for this) and then copying the requisite files to the 64 bit OS.
From: Alan Zheng <address@hidden> Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 3:50 AM To: address@hidden Subject: configure fail for grub
Hello All:
When I configure grub-1.96, I got following error message:
configure: error: neither start nor _start is defined