Fedora uses / as its default label for the / partition. The installer is smart enough if you have an existing partition with a / label to use /x (where x is a number starting at one) so the OS will not attempt to mount multiple filesystems with the same label.

So grub can not find menu.lst (grubs configuration file) so that is why you see the grub prompt. Fedora actually grub configuration file is /boot/grub.conf and there are symlinks to menu.lst and /etc/grub.conf.

Since you reinstalled grub you might also need to rebuild the file used in by the windows boot loader.

"root=LABEL=/1" is the standard RHEL label, it would seem. I've seen it on every ver. 4+ install so far.

Right... that's something else I didn't think to try.

So, you're saying that although grub.conf was fine, grub couldn't find it because of a broken symlink? Damn. Though I still can't figure out how reformatting 1 partition messed up the contents of another.

O.K., so go do it all again, and screw up you system again so we can all find out ...

(yes, I am joking).

I would, but the laptop in question is no longer with me. XD

If you still need GRUB info.: http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html

Does your last post mean that you won't be working on this problem at all, or the it will be delayed?

Actually, I mentioned several posts ago that I fixed the problem by reinstalling linux. The main reason this thread kept going was that I was interested in learning how it might have screwed up. I'd rather learn stuff than blindly reinstall every time something goes wrong (Windows, anybody?)