[Wolves] What have I done?

[Joe Wrigley]

> Maybe its not actually writing to the MBR? the files are there 
> under /boot/Grub maybe is giving the impression is written but in fact its not?

Try running a boot CD.

mount your root partition and then chroot to it

run grub and then interactively do something like:
root (hd0,1) # where /boot is on /dev/hda2
setup (hd0) # I think help setup should give some pointers

Joe