Total newb with what I suspect are the usual problems.
I am running SUSE 10 and Adobe stopped firing up automatically or directly. So having used expert tools to re-load grub on a previous occasion with success I tried checking all the pre-loaded packages. Once done I re-booted and was asked for the root password. When I typed this in there was no activity on the screen, tried again same thing hit return and got something like <(none)~>.
"So was this the boot loader", re-loaded grub via expert tools and the same thing happened, also tried to recover the system and got the same issue with the root password not appearing when I typed it in. As a MS user I am now finding things like MS Genuine Advantage intrusive and irritating and I am very concerned about security issues
especially as I have two kids and an extensive home network.
If I can get to grips with Linux I intend to migrate as much of my network to Linux as possible. Any help will be very welcome.

Your question(s) make no sense. What's Adobe and Suse have to do with each other?

Do you have the menu.lst file from a known-good boot? If not, I'd say reformat/reinstall and pay careful attention to the install. If you have a good menu.lst (not one from the intarweb) then type in the uncommented portions towards the bottom of the file and see what happens.

Lastly, grub isn't perfect and as you found out, it can be rather dangerous.

Mpapet
The reason for mentioning Adobe was to try and put the problem into context. The problems with Adobe where the reason why I was mucking about in the first place and caused the problem.
Thanks for the advice I am coming to the same conclusion.