GRUB install problem, dual boot with XP

[natricks1]

This is my first attempt at installing linux.
I currently am planning on dual booting windows xp and mint linux. I have many hard drives installed, 2 IDE raid arrays on a controller, one on the primary IDE controller, and one SATA 36g Raptor, which i currently have XP installed on.

The windows install is complete, with the primary partition formatted in ntfs, which is for the file system, and a second logical drive for the swap file(FAT32)
I intend to have linux and xp on the same drive(36g raptor)
The first time i installed mint, it went fine, made 2 partitions manually, one ext3 for the filesystem, and one for the swap. In the final screen before install i did not see the option to change where grub is installed. It installed on hd0, and when i restarted the computer, windows booted right up, not giving me a boot loader.

I am not sure how or where to specify the boot loader be placed, but i have a feeling it's in the wrong place.
Any help is appriciated!

[wirechief]

I have had to reinstall Windows only to find that GRUB had been written over and I was unable to use my Ubuntu and Freespire Distros, I found a solution by installing Ubuntu (again) in a unused partition it then wrapped the Windows MBR allowing booting of all three (again) there is one other way that I know of that is with super grub, however it will smuck up windows if used but allow access to the Linux distros again. You have a slightly different situation with your windows on a SATA drive I don't have any experience wth that and all that I have read so far is that lInux has a hard time using them. Anyone else have any suggestions?

[natricks1]

Each time i try to install, booted from the live cd, it keeps crashing during the grub install.
I have tried (/dev/sda3), (/dev/sda3,0) and (hd0). would it help if i posted the errors i get when it crashes?

[Boo]

since you only have 2 linux partitions grub and boot files are in your / partition, nothing goes in swap.
the installer would (should) have changed the MBR (master boot record) on your master hard disk to put a grub there from the / partion.

if you reinstall windows it will overwrite the MBR and you will get no boot loader. but you can restore the MBR using the live CD and using the grub commad.

you need to know where grub is. i expect it is in the second partition on your master disk hd0,1 or sda1.
in a terminal run:
# grub
# root (hd0,1)
# setup (hd0)
# quit

reboot and hopefully that fixed it.