SOLVED!
I have solved my problem in a number of ways. . .
I realize that perhaps I was asking a bit much telling my windows install to just become the slave drive like that.
Now its configured as follows.
/dev/hda1 WinXP NTFS hardrive with untouched MBR (when i installed linux I unplugged it as I was sooo paranoid I would damage it like i did on my home mahcine. As you could understand I dont have the time at work to muck about re-installing and resuing all my data!
/dev/hdb1 MANDRAKE the mbr of this drive has lilo conficured and only has the menu for linux,linuxfb and floppy.
When i want turn the mahcine on it goes into windows unless . . . I press F11 during the bios autodetect and it brings up a bios bootloader and i choose the second HDD.
Alternatley I made a bootdisk using the Mandrake control center by telling it to install grub on /dev/fdo with a 0 or 1 sec wait to select linux. I just leave the disk in most of the time and remove it to go back to windows..
When i get my next work computer upgrade and am installing a new XP etc I will do it properly and create a correct bootloader but for the time being this will be more than adequate
Thanks all for you help/ideas
Daniel.