Linux Mint Forums

Grub error 17 is

Cannot mount selected partition
This error is returned if the partition requested exists, but the filesystem type cannot be recognized by GRUB.

There is no difference if you use one or several disks to put your operating systems on as far as I know - have not tested though
From the live cd you are able to mount the partitions (if you use standard Cassandra just open gparted and every partition is mounted and opened - can be annoying at times)
and make changes to /boot /grub/menu.lst
What is recommended is to use rootnoverify instead of root for Windows like

title Microsoft Windows XP Professional
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

For Linux check that you use the right partition like

title Linux Mint, kernel 2.6.20-16-generic
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-16-generic root=UUID=c7cca7f7-3cb8-48f4-8065-2eb36e4b1ccf ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic
quiet
savedefault

Note that grub uses one unit less in its designation, so (hd0,1) above means that grub is in /dev/sda1 and the Linux kernel in /dev/sda2
Instead of the notoriously unreliable UUID in the example above I could have used /dev/sda2.
So check your partition numbering and adjust the menu.lst to it
The default location for installing grub is hd0 and you choose at the summary page of the install. There's a button Advanced.....
Judging by your description I think the numbering of your partitions and /boot /grub/menu.lst does not add up.

all hard disk hda/b references have now been replaced with sda/b no matter what type of disk.
grub should be located in the MBR of (hd0) because that is the disk you boot off. the part of grub in the MBR (which is the first 512bytes of a disk) is just enough to give you the boot menu.
your full grub and boot area is at hd1,1 (/boot/grub/stage1 etc).

so at the moment you still have the windows boot manager in the MBR of hd0.
so you can either reinstall Mint and let it put grub in hd0 (default) or you can boot off the live CD, edit the grub menu.lst file and then write it to the MBR of hd0.

it might just be easier to reinstall since you have no important data to loose.

This caused me some grub problems one time. I noticed as I skimmed down through this thread that you said you had PATA hard drives. If the jumpers are not correct and the drives are not correctly connected to the cable it'll cause you a lot of grief. Drives won't be recognized by the OS or the OS will go through the motions of installing and not be there when you reboot.
The wide flat ribbon cable has three connectors on it. The center one is usually closer to one end than the other . the connector furtherest from the center one is the motherboard connector. The center one is the slave connector and the end connector closest to the slave is the master drive connector. Some manufacturers of these cables color code the connectors and some don't. Be sure of where you place your drives on the cable.
Also, some drives of different manufacture ( for example: a Western Digital set up as master with a Maxtor as slave) might not set up as master and slave. It might be something like master and cable select. Cable select choses the function of the drive by its placement on the cable.
Whew! I think that's about got it.

Good Luck.

Well the thing that controls master/slve is a jumper on the drive, and you could connect any way you like, but it is recommended to do as bobpur writes. The notes on poorly connected ribbon cables is highly valuable - oh dear how many times I've run into that (I've bee poking around in lots of computers too many times to remember)