I have a interesting question and have tried searching various subjects that appeared to relate but have not yet found a solution.
I have been a die hard Slackware user for years although I dont do much beyond using it as samba/apache/mysql server.

Regardless of my comfortability I still feel like a Linux noob and can over think issues sometimes.
The issue:
I had Slack 11 installed on a Dual Pentium III 600 rack mount with / , /home and /bin on three 9gig SCSI drives (each on separate drive) and had a MAXTOR 150 SATA card with two SATA drives installed. All my problems began when I upgraded the card...(long story..needed for another system I was working on).

So...after putting in the new card (Promis TX2 I think)...my SATA drives were no longer accessible. This was my first experience with Linux and changing controllers AND keeping the drives attached to them with data intact. I would get 'bad superblock' errors upon attempting to mount them. After speaking with someone more experienced than I, it was recommended I re-install as the quickest/easiest solution since the new install would rewrite the superblock. He had informed me that Linux puts information about the controller in the superblock (which I did not know)

I re-installed with Slack 12, then with fedora 9?, then Ubuntu 7.04 each of these couldn't access/mount the SATA drives with 'bad superblock'. As a last resort I loaded the Knoppix 5.01 DVD and BOOM there they were!! As I was in the middle of packing up the house and getting ready to move to another state I decided to leave it as was and just redo my SAMBA if I needed to reboot. As part of the move I sold of a bunch of my computer parts including the server.

After the move I tried again on another system I had kept, with Ubuntu 7.10 server and desktop. Now I cannot get them to boot into the OS. I even tried the Knoppix hd install and it wouldn't boot either. I can boot in with Knoppix and mount the installed system ..all the files are there...I can even run grub-install which finds no errors...but all i get is "non system disk...blah blah...". I was going to try to load Lilo as with slackware using it by default I am more familiar with it..but using a apt-get install lilo requires me to insert the install disk for Ubuntu. Which unless i load Knoppix to ram I cannot do since the live cd is in the drive.

So again I am stuck with booting into Knoppix and setting up Samba..but this is only a temporary fix as I need to get my mySQL and Apache up again. So as to why on this secondary system I cannot get it to boot ... have no clue. I am not even sure if the orighal problem would re-occur if I could get it to boot.

The new system is a AMD VM based MB with a 1600 Athlon and 512MB Ram. The HD I am trying to install to is a 13GB IBM drive that tests good on generic and the IBM test. The only other drive I have left (that doesn't have data on it) is a 6gig Western Digital. The SATA drives are 200 and 320 I also have a IDE 250 but of course I have too much data on these to try installing on them.

I have attempted to install with the 13gig on the secondary IDE channel, I have also attempted to install on it alone without any of the other drives connected during the install and initial reboot.
I am at loss as what to do. I don't know why the system isn't booting to the drive. This drive is setup in the BIOS as the boot drive. I have disabled all other boot options to see if some confusion was going on causing the system to be confused as to where to look for the grub.
I need some ideas to get my brain heading in the right direction.
Thanks

Apologize for long post..but I usually kick a dead horse for awhile until i realize it is truly dead..then I want to explain how I kicked the dead horse.