Rails - May 2010 - validating a form with a foreign key

Hi there.
I have a problem with validating a form, where is foreign key present.
I have a table like this:
  id
  name
  password
  status_id

This is the way that status_id is implemented to the users table.
<td><%= select_tag (''status_id'',
options_for_select([[''-- choose one
--'', nil]] + @status.collect { |stat| [stat.status, stat.id]},
@user.status_id))%></td>
-------------

When I dont enter anything to any of the fields, I get an error:
 NoMethodError in Users#create
Showing users/_form.rhtml where line #12 raised:
You have a nil object when you didn''t expect it! You might have
expected
an instance of Array. The error occurred while evaluating nil.collect
Extracted source (around line #12):
12: <td><%= select_tag (''status_id'',
options_for_select([[''-- choose one
--'', '''']] + @status.collect { |stat| [stat.status,
stat.id]},
@user.status_id))%></td>
----------

And when everything is "not blank" just the status_id is nto chosen, I
get another error:
ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound in UsersController#create
Couldn''t find Status with ID-------------

Here is the code of my controller:
class UsersController < ApplicationController
  def index
    @user = User.find(:all)
  end
 #***************************************************************** NEW
  def new
    @user = User.new
    @status = Status.find(:all)
  end

  def create
    @user = User.new(params[:user])

    status = Status.find(params[:status_id])
    @user.status = status

    if @user.save
      flash[:notice] = ''New item successfully created!''
      redirect_to(:action => ''index'')
    else
      flash[:notice] = ''Creating an item failed!''
      render(:action => ''new'')
    end
  end
end
-----------------

Can you suggest a solution??????
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