CentOS - Sep 2010 - GRUB woes: GRUB Hard Disk Error

Hello all,
I am attempting to install CentOS 5.5 on a recently donated home server (was
Windows).  I've tried installing twice; first, separating /boot, swap, /,
/var, /usr and /home into different partitions, the second time choosing
default layout.  Both times have resulted in "GRUB Hard Disk Error"
upon
boot.

About the hard disk, it is a Seagate SATA drive.  I do not have another
drive to configure RAID.
The BIOS is set to:
Onboard PATA/SATA Adapters = Both
SATA mode = IDE
Onboard PATA/SATA Cofiguration = Enhanced Mode (???)

Upon booting into rescue mode, the file systems mount successfully and I am
able to read data from files.
The current file structure is (default layout):
/boot
/
swap

grub.conf:
#boot=/dev/sda1
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title CentOS (2.6.18-194.el5)
       root (hd1,0)
       kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
       initrd /initrd-2.6.18-194.el5.img
title Other
       rootmoverify (hd0,0)
       chainloader +1

This is brand new from the installation.

My questions are, what am I missing?  Bad configuration?  Should
boot=/dev/sda1 really be commented out?

Some pointers for manually installing and configuring grub would be great,
as I am lacking experience in that area.

Any idea as to what is going on would be great!

Thanks in advance,
Rob
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Update: on a hunch, I tried installing Ubuntu Server.  Interestingly, the
GRUB installation failed during setup, however the LILO installation
completed successfully, the Ubuntu installation boots correctly.

For me, the whole reason to start using CentOS was to move away from Ubuntu.
I could do 3 things:
Try to install grub under Ubuntu and then use this
http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/InstallFromGRUB as a guide, or

Something like this:  The above except using LILO, or

Try to install the LILO boot loader after a CentOS installation; in rescue
mode.


Better ideas or suggestions?

TIA

Rob
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On Sun, 19 Sep 2010, Rob Del Vecchio wrote:
> To: centos at centos.org
> From: Rob Del Vecchio <rob.delvecchio at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [CentOS] GRUB woes: GRUB Hard Disk Error
> 
> Update: on a hunch, I tried installing Ubuntu Server.  Interestingly, the
> GRUB installation failed during setup, however the LILO installation
> completed successfully, the Ubuntu installation boots correctly.
>
> For me, the whole reason to start using CentOS was to move away from
Ubuntu.
> I could do 3 things:
> Try to install grub under Ubuntu and then use this
> http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/InstallFromGRUB as a guide, or
>
> Something like this:  The above except using LILO, or
>
> Try to install the LILO boot loader after a CentOS installation; in rescue
> mode.
>
>
> Better ideas or suggestions?
>
> TIA
>
> Rob
Well I'd wipe the drive clean using Gparted with a cross 
format. Do a minimal kickstart installation to install GRUB 
on the MBR.

Prior to that make sure the BIOS settings are OK for the 
SATA drive.

That shouldn't take to long.

HTH

Keith