LinuxQuestions.org - Boot loader (GNU grub 0.97) problems

Hello,

I have Suse 10.1 and Windows XP which I dual boot using the GNU grub. I have two hard drives with a raid set up. So the first hard drive has a windows partition, a linux parition and a linux swap partition and the other harddrive has the same for the raid.

Anyway the other day I restarted my computer and instead of the usual GUI that comes up for the boot loader I got this message:
"GNU grub version 0.97 (628k lower/523200k upper memory)

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Anyway, this confused me a lot as it happened for no apparent reason and I eventually booted linux again via the installation disc and after searching the internet a bit decided I'd try uninstalling the grub and then reinstalling it using the the yast install package manager. Having done this I realised it was a foolish mistake and am now in a situation even worse than before.

After restarting my PC instead got, "Grub loading... Error 16" which from what I can gather means it thinks I don't have the grub installed.

Anyway I then realised I could have used the yast repair application on the install disc so I tried this next to see if I could get it to install the grub properly. However for reasons unknown this yast repair application always seems to think I do not have linux installed, even though I evidently do. And when I try yo install the boot loader it syas, "No valid root partition found. Go back and select scan options. Afterwards, restart scanning."

When I go a general scan for problems and it gets to partition /dev/sda2 (the linux partition) it says, "No valid Linux partitions found".

This would worry me more except linux is there because I'm on it, though annoying now because I might be able to get the boot loader working if the yast repair thing worked.

So has anyone got any ideas? I currently can't access windows and have to use the installation disk to get onto linux.

I thought I could make a floppy disc with the grub on, so I can just use the floppy disc to load the boot loader (though hopefully as a temporary measure) but I can't seem to find a comprehensive guide on how to do this.

Anyway, any help with any aspect of my problem would be very helpful. I'm a complete noob, so excuse any misused lingo above and clear and consise, step by step advice would be very much appreciated.

My PC doesn't seem to like me recently and I seem to be spending more time trying to get it to work than using it so I'm quite peeved off at the moment hence I thought I'd post here as I'm hoping this'll provide a more hassle free was of finding a solution than googling all day.

Thanks in advance,

Vinay