Hey guys, I'm going crazy trying to get my linux box up after installing my new motherboard and processor. I've been using linux for over 5 years exclusivly at home. I've installed it more times than I can think of. This is the first time my install has been a complete failure. Anyhow on to the relevant info. My new hardware is:
nForce3-A motherboard
AMD Athlon64 3000+

So I installed the hardware and started up my box. It immediately have me a grub error saying "Grub 1.5 Read Error" or something similar. So I figured this was due to my new hardware and wasn't a big deal. I went about installing Kubuntu on hda2 where my slack install used to reside. The install went fine without errors. After it installed grub into my MBR, I rebooted and received the same grub read error. It all has gone down hill from there.

I've tried every disk I have laying around my office. The live Kubuntu AMD64 DVD boots fine and I can do anything I need to in that. I also booted using a 32 bit version of Knoppix live CD and I can mount my partitions and all looks fine. I can also get to the grub CLI from there and it looks like it installs grub fine. I have also tried to install the AMD64 testing version of Debian. This gives me a different error after I do the base install. It says "System boot disk failure. Please insert boot disk and press return" or something of that nature. It does not look like its a error that grub is spitting out though.

I'm hoping this is just somthing I have overlooked in the bios or hardware install. Here are some of the things I've tried.

Reinstall grub via CLI
"root (hd0,1)"
"setup (hd0)"
it says its successful

Changed BIOS setting
"set access mode to LBA on HDs"
"changed boot order around"

Flashed/updated BIOS (already latest version)

Let Debian installer wipe out my whole HD and all partitions

Created /boot partition

I have list any more info needed. Please help, this is driving me crazy not having my linux apps.

BTW hda is a 160GB hd that now only has a swap and ext3 partition on it. It used to tripple boot on my old hardware. I've never had any problems with grub in the MBR previously.

This may not help much, but I have noticed many threads dealing with problems when using nForce chipsets. (When I saw that in your post, it set alarms off in my head anyway.) My suggestion is to focus on what people have done to get nForce boards operating. You might also check the hardware compatibility list (HCL on the menu) to see if there are any problems with your particular board with respect to Linux. The answer may be using a special kernel or something like that. Since Knoppix and Kubuntu worked OK, you know a solution exists.

Can't find much searching about people not able to boot. The wierd thing is when I boot the live CD/DVD it looks like everthing onboard is supported fine. I wish I had a floppy disk to try to boot into my OS.

Although I have not tried it, there is a way to make a boot floppy using Knoppix.
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Boot_Floppy_HowTo

Incidentally, I do not know if you have your heart set on any particular distribution, but you can do a full install of Knoppix. (I am saying this in case you did not know it was not limited to being a live, CD only, version.)

Additionally, I recall some of the distros like Slackware (not for the timid) also have a boot from the floppy option, although the Slackware boot floppies can be used to install other distributions like SUSE.
http://en.opensuse.org/Install_on_PC...t_boot_from_CD

Let me add that I do not know if these will help in your situation. They are just some ideas that you can consider. Good luck in any case.

Oops, I meant I wish I had a floppy drive. I know you can make a bootable cd image, but I've haven't tried that yet. As far as the distro goes, I'd either like to use Debian or Kubuntu. I don't know if I can live w/o apt-get anymore . I did have slack on my old HD, but its all wiped out now.

Dont have you have to reinstall the Boot drive?

I have tried to reinstall grub into the MBR, and I tried creating a boot partition. Still got the same results.