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GRUB not loading on bootup going straight to Windows

I currently have windows XP installed on the master hard drive of my computer and I reciently have installed FC6 on a slave drive the instillation seamed to work fine but when I reboot the system GRUB never loads and it boots straight into XP
I've reinstalled FC on this disk about 3 times all all 3 times it does the exact same thing I used to have redhat 7 on this disk and it would boot to GRUB fine but for whatever reason I had to format the MBR and have only used windows for the last year. What am I missing here?

You have to install grub to the MBR of the first hard drive (/dev/hda).

When I installed FC I could swear that I had it set to overwrite the MBR. I'll go home tonight and try again to make sure.

Just make sure it overwrites the MBR on the first hard drive, not on the second (where it is installed).

If it is not obvious that the installer is going to put grub on the first drive, you can always put it on a floppy.

Also, you should be able to install grub from the install CD. Boot from the CD and--as soon as it is up a running, type ctrl-alt-F1. This should get you to a command line.

Here are the steps to install grub from any Linux command line:
I'm assuming IDE/PATA, and Fedora all on one partition (/)

Code:

grub   starts the grub shell

root  (hd1,0)  Tells grub that "home base" is on the first partition of the 2nd drive

setup (hd0)

If you have FC6 setup with a separate partition for /boot, then the "root" statement above needs to point to that partition.

Now you have to edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file to make sure it is setup correctly.