Сам пока не пробовал. но может кому поможет.

Reverting to GRUB Legacy
If a user chooses to return to GRUB legacy (0.97), these steps will remove GRUB 2 and install GRUB.
The command line produces a cleaner uninstall and reinstallation. While adding and removing the packages can be accomplished with Synaptic, certain steps must be accomplished in a terminal.
1. Open a terminal: Applications, Accessories, Terminal.
2. Make backup copies of the main GRUB 2 folders & files. (Optional)
* sudo cp /etc/default/grub /etc/default/grub.old
* sudo cp -R /etc/grub.d /etc/grub.d.old
* sudo cp -R /boot/grub /boot/grub.old
3. Remove GRUB 2
* sudo apt-get purge grub2 grub-pc
* The system will be unbootable until another bootloader is installed.
* Once the packages are removed, many files will still remain in ‘/boot/grub’
4. Install GRUB 0.97
* sudo apt-get install grub
5. With grub installed, the user must still create the menu.lst and stage1/stage2 files by running the following two commands.
1. sudo update-grub
* Generates menu.lst
o Tab to “Yes” when prompted.
2. sudo grub-install /dev/sdX
* Choose the correct device (sda, sdb, etc), normally the one on which Ubuntu is installed.
* Creates the stage1 & stage2 files in /boot/grub and writes to the MBR.
Run this command to keep it from upgrading automatically:
echo “grub hold” | sudo dpkg –set-selections
# Reboot