Ok, without sounding like a complete idiot here. I'll try my best to be as descriptive as possible.
The scenario:
I needed to tune my kernel in order for Rosegarden to start so I did.
>>> modified kernel time to 1000MHz
The next thing I know, I tried to reboot the laptop to use the modified kernel and I got this error message:
>>>error 13 Invalid or unsupported executable format
Ok, no panic yet... I'll just insert the openSUSE disk, boot from there and go back to my orginal settings.
>>> that didn't work still got the same error.
Ok, so next step would be for me to again try the openSUSE disk and try to reinstall grub..
>>>error 21 Selected disk does not exist
Since I'm totally clueless on how to map the only drive I have.. (i'm assuming that takes place in the /boot/grub menu.lst file)
Now I'm totally confused at this point .. so I try to write generic boot code to the MBR. That didn't work ..
But now my menu.lst file looks like the following:

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Mon Mar 12 18:37:10 CDT 2007
default 0
timeout 8
##YaST - generic_mbr
gfxmenu (hd0,2)/message
##YaST - activate

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 10.2
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 vga=0x317 resume=/dev/hda1 splash=silent showopts
initrd /initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 10.2
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 vga=normal showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume edd=off 3
initrd /initrd

Should I try and use the chainloader +1 option at this point? Or just make the boot partition active with the make active command?

Any help towards the right direction would be crucial at this point. As I don't want to have re-install the OS because of my screw-up.

Thanks

The entry for openSuse doesn't look quite right, unless you have a separate boot partition.

root (hd 0,2) refers to the third partition (Grub counts from 0) but then the next line locates root in the second partition (root=/dev/hda2 = second partition as this counts from 1).

root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2

If the root of the filesystem is indeed at (hd0,2) (grubspeak for /dev/hda3), then edit the kernel line to show root=/dev/hda3.

Since you don't show the partitions as they are listed in /etc/fstab, it's difficult to give you any better information.

More points:

You can't install a "generic" boot loader to the mbr. GRUB, at least, gets hard coded to point to its config file.

Making the boot partition active has no meaning in Linux. And, it also not relevant unless you put boot code there.

I think you simply need to install grub with the correct root--ie the partition where /boot/grub/menu.lst lives, and then get menu.lst corrected

sorry bigrigdriver heres the info from /etc/fstab:

/dev/hda2 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/hda3 /boot ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/hda4 /home ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/hda1 swap swap defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0

Since / and /boot are in different partitions, the menu.lst entries have to be adjusted accordingly, thusly:

title Linux-whatever
root (hd0,2)
kernel <name> root=/dev/hda2 <otherstuff>

Note that <name> has no "/boot" in the path since /boot is the grub root partition----ie "root (hd0,2)" already has sent grub to /boot.

Another clarification: The first root tells grub where to find its files, the second one tells the kernel where to mount the filesystem---2 totally different things.....

With /boot in /dev/hda3 (hd0,2) and / (root) in /dev/hda2 (hd0,1), here is the adjustment to make to menu.lst.

change:
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2

to this:
root (hd0,1)
kernel (hd0,2)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2

which tells grub the partition where the rest of grub, and the compressed kernel image, are located, and where the root of the filesystem is located.

Ummm--I think mine is correct.

In the general form of a menu.lst entry:

root (hdX,Y) refers to the location of the kernel and the grub config files. Thus is has to point to /boot

kernel <name> root=/dev/hdX,Y (Here <name> is the path to the kernel, starting from the first root statement. If root (hdX,Y) is /boot, then <name> would simply be vmlinuzxxxxxx. The "root" statement after the kernel name tells the kernel where to mount the filesystem root (/) )

Also, specifying the grub root (1st line), and then putting it before the kernel name, is redundant