Loading GRUB With 'Error 17', Need Help Badly
 

So here is my problem:

So I just finished trying to dual boot XP with Ubuntu for the tenth time. I set up my first linux partition as the primary and all other partitions logical. Then it asked me if I wanted to load the bootstrap loader in the MBR, I didnt know exactly what to do, so I checked yes.

Then when my system finished rebooting to finish the instalation, it goes straight to XP. So i'm now begining to think that I wasen't supposed to put the bootstrap loader in the MBR.

If that's what stopped me from dual booting, is there a way I can move the bootstrap loader? Or do I have to redo the whole instalation and pick not put the bootstrap loader in the MBR?

My system is as follows:

I have three hardrives.

Drive #1: One partition with all my music in NTFS.
Drive #2: Windows XP with 5 partitions.
Drive #3: Trying to get Linux on it.

The bootloader was GRUB.

Also, when I was setting up al my partitions on the third disk, I put it as type '/' (root). But there was also an option to put it as type boot.

I set up XP first.

And for some reason, the drive with Linux dosen't show up in the BIOS.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My Msn is also concubine_@hotmail.com if you wish to help me through there.

We need a little more detail.
What happens on boot - exactly.
- do you get an error 17 ??
- from selecting what ???.
- what do you mean it boots straight to XP ??. Do you select it, does it time-out to XP, does it not use grub at all (if so where is the error 17 coming from).

There must be a mess with hard drives. With hard disk order as described it shouldn't boot at all. AFAIK XP boots only from first drive. Third HDD does not show up in BIOS ... Cabling, jumpers ...
Probably GRUB is installed to the wrong drive and this is why it boots directly to XP.

Maybe this will help. I installed MEPIS on my 3rd Hardrive and when GRUB installed, the MBR got corrupted. First I got the error 17 code, then I tried a bootloader called GAG but then there were no operating systems found. I researched the net and found a simple solution that another linux user suggested and it worked perfect. I installed SUSE linux 10 on my 3rd drive, in my case hdc. After the install of SUSE, Ii rebooted and had a beautiful menu screen prompting me for my choices of O/S. Thanks to the workers at SUSE, somehow it recognized my other drives, including Windows and now I can boot into both.
I'm not sure at this point if I'm going to change SUSE but for now I am a loyal user because of the mess it got me out of !!!