So I have to ask. I cant even begin to explain how many countless hours I have put into setting this server up for my boss, but is there anyway possible for me to reinstall linux or grub or anything that WONT destroy everything I have done on the server?

The boot directory on /dev/sda2 should be empty. It's the mount point for /dev/sda1, and will not show files unless /dev/sda1 is mounted.

So, if you are looking at /boot and seeing an empty folder, that implies that /dev/sda1 is not mounted (which may be the problem in the first place).

Try "mount /dev/sda1 /boot'. Do you get any kind of message? If not, then look at the contents of /boot again.

What do you see?

Ok I think I may have gone wrong with understanding that I am using a live CD to do all the command stuff. Anyway I am using a slax CD and once I log into the terminal I get a "root@slax:/#" prompt.
here is what I get...

root@slax:/# cd boot
root@slax:/# ls
grub/ lost+found/

Now I thought this was just coming off the CD so I also did this...
root@slax:/# cd /mnt/sda1
root@slax:/# ls
grub/ lost+found/

And to be sure that what I was looking at made since I also did this...
root@slax:/# cd /mnt/sda2
root@slax:/#ls
...all my folders and files (ones I did personally) show up here...
root@slax:/# cd boot
root@slax:/# ls
root@slax:/# (I get nothing)

With showing these examples (hopefully it helps illustrate any confusion either of us has) When I did the first example then did this...
root@slax:/# vi grub/menu.lst
.
.
.
-contents of menu.lst are displayed-
everything that is shown in this are all the changes we made to the file but I was under the impression that it would have been just a copy of the file on the disk.

Oh yea I almost forgot. I did try to mount sda1 and it said it already was which may explain away the confusion I had with thinking I may end up looking at a CD version of the menu.lst file.

That's bad news. Most of the files that should be in /boot are missing (the system map, kernel and initrd images, etc).

That's bad news. All of the files that should be in /boot are missing.

It seems that when someone (whomever that someone is) tried to seperate /boot from the root of the filesystem and put it in it's own partition, the files of /boot were incompletely moved from the /boot under the root of the filesystem to the new /boot partition.

'ls /boot' should look something like this:
If you have a backup that you can restore, then you can recover those missing files.

If you don't have a backup, you will have to re-install the grub rpm from the Fedora install cd. Copy it from the cd, and re-install with 'rpm -i --replacefiles <grub rpm name here>'.

Well based on what you have said, I will have to reinstall grub. Now I have FC6 so do I want to do a "text install" then, in order to run this ???

I have always done graphical, thats why I ask.
And thanks much for your help and patients in all of this. I greatly appreciate it.

I suggested the command-line version of rpm installation because I don't know what Fedora provides by way of GUI installer, and I don't know if the GUI installer will allow you to specify the --replacefiles option (to replace those missing files in /boot).

Indeed, I'm not certain re-installing grub will replace the kernel, initrd, systemmap, etc., or if those files are copied there during the OS installation. I'm hoping that the installation of grub is what drives the copying of files into /boot. Those missing files certainly go a long way to explain the grub error 15.

If this still doesn't work, there is still one option left: backup what you have (as in system backup) then re-install Fedora. If it comes to that, be careful during installation, when it gets to the part of selecting the partition(s) to install into, select /dev/sda1 with a mount point of /boot and do not format, then select /dev/sda2 with a mount point of / and do not format.

That should get your /boot files back. But it will (may?) undo anything else you have done in setting up the server. Just restore that backup (all except /boot) and you're back in business.

Ok one last question and I am going to try what your requesting me to do, to fix this. How do I find the grub name, for this <grub rpm name here>?

Thanks again

Well just as an FYI I tried the rescue mode [F5] and it ends up saying something like it had problems mounting some things and then lets me hit enter to get a sh-3.1# prompt... Im still unsure how to find the rpm grub name though.

EDIT: Here is another thing I just tried...
http://roshan18.wordpress.com/2008/0...b-boot-loader/
if I do this...
# root (hd0,0)
# setup (hd0)

It all looks good except that one line says...
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists...no

Does that mean anything to you?