grub-install seems to be wiping my partitions

[Duncan Lithgow]

> One thing to try is not to use grub-install which is flaky on some
> systems and results in the error messages you report.
> 
> Instead type the commands:
> grub
> > root (hd0,0)
> > setup (hd0)
> > quit

Well, at least I don't feel like such an idiot any more - it sounds
like I'm certainly not the first one to have problems with such a
critical app as grub - I am rather supprised that it can be "flaky" 
when it is so criticla and, apparently, can easily do so much
damage... but that's for the grub list.

... what I'm up to now. I tried to go through the same steps as last
time by installing win2000 again. That seemed to go fine until I
rebooted and I was back to the dreaded "Error 22". So obviously that
wasn't going to work this time. I had a look at what was left of the
hd without ovewriting the data I want back - so i've reinstalled fc3
on a rather small part of the disk and hoped that would help.

So I rebooted and again got "Error 22" yet again. Reaching for my
emergency ideas I decided that maybe this was because I had installed
boot on it's own partition. So I ran:
#grub
#root (hd0,2)
#setup (hd0)
#quit

and started again - now it boots - I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm *very* annoyed that grub can do so much harm when it is such an
elemental tool for people trying to move from windows to linux - this
is really an achiles heel of great significance. Also the
availablility of rescue tools is way out of the league of most windows
users. Going through all this has really questioned my commitment not
to opensource or floss, but to linux as an alternative os. It's just
too steep a learning curve and too hard for windows users.

end rant.

Now I just have to work out how to restore one partition without
f***ng up all the things I've got to work again.

thanks for the help guys, Duncan