How can I fix my Grub2 installation so that I can boot?

QUESTION:
How can I fix my Grub2 installation so that I can boot? Is there anything obvious in http://ift.tt/2bk30WV that suggests the problem?

SITUATION:
I am trying to install Ubuntu 14.04.04 from a "live CD" USB flash drive to a Dell Inspiron 14z but it is failing to install Grub correctly so I can not boot the laptop. Ubuntu 14.04 was previously installed to the laptop and I do not want to wipe the home drive partition so I am using the "Something else" installation type option to manually configure the mounting and partitions

Disk configuration:

• /dev/sda - a 500gb hard drive
  
  • /dev/sda1 - is ~60gb fat32 - I haven't touched this, I think it's Dell's "restore Windows" partition
  • /dev/sda2 - is ~450gb for home /home, I am NOT reformatting this partition
  
  
• /dev/sdb - a 32gb SSD
  
  • /dev/sdb1 - is 24gb / partition, I am reformatting this one
  • /dev/sdb2 - is 1mb bios_grub (I'm not sure why it has higher device number, it comes before others on this disk)
  • /dev/sdb3 - is 8gb swap
  • The device for the boot loader set to /dev/sdb

After the install reports success I reboot the laptop, but this shows me the "grub restore" prompt. When I use the "live CD" USB flash drive, I can see the /dev/sdb2 partition and it appears to have all the files that it should so I think that the problem is just with Grub.

WHAT I'VE TRIED SO FAR:

• boot-repair from my "live CD" USB - fails because the USB was booted via legacy not UEFI, I have a boot-repair ISO downloading and I'll try to install that on another thumb drive as a UEFI boot USB drive (haven't had a chance to do this yet)
• installing Ubuntu with different devices or partitions for the boot loader (these have all failed on install, reporting that it cannot install the boot loader to that location)

The boot loader paste bin is here:
http://ift.tt/2bk30WV

HOW THIS HAPPENED:
Previously I had been able to view local SWF files in Chrome, however this had stopped working (assumption: in some automatic Chrome update).

I attempted the instructions here: http://ift.tt/2buO1pt, which involved editing /usr/share/mime/packages/freedesktop.org.xml and sudo update-mime-database /usr/share/mime, but those seemed to corrupt the XWindows or Gnome drivers and I was unable to login to Gnome (although I could still login to a terminal).

Unable to fix it I thought "oh well, a reinstall can't be too hard..."

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How can I fix my Grub2 installation so that I can boot?