finally i fixed this. u r correct. what was happening was this. at installation time i would choose to load grub onto first partition(/boot). i was afraid of deleting the MBR. i thought the computer only needed one MBR, but it turns out that each hard drive needs its own MBR. this time around i switched drive order, and chose to install GRUB as the MBR on my 2nd drive, and it worked like a charm. now all i have to do is figure out how to chainload correctly so i dont have to switch the driver order in BIOS, but that will not be hard at all. heh, im sure u already knew all that stuff but in case some other helpless newb comes along having the same problem it will save them the days(yes days not hours) of reinstalling the OS over and over and over and over......
this experience of the last week setting this up has taught me one thing....well not taught me, but brought down my confidence in computers, now i know how my mom feels when asking me "how do i send my freind this webpage.." LOL
