Dapper install failure?

[Hylton Conacher(ZR1HPC)]

Hi,

I have been a SuSE KDE user for some time and am fairly confident in 
using KDE. I have two machines plugged into a switch. Mach B is my 
production system and runs SuSE 9.2. Machine A is a fair brute of a box 
that used to dualboot between SuSE 10 and Win XP. I intend using Mach A 
to host a local file and mailserver for the family, hopefully courtesy 
of ubuntu.

Whilst in theory I might be able to stop using Windows entirely, until I 
can find a tool that is easy to setup and successfully allows me to use 
my finance packages(Quicken 98 and Metastock), I am stuck with using 
Windows.

There are two HDDs in Machine A, an IDE(hda) one and a SATA(sda) one. 
When the machine was purchased, I installed Windows on the IDE drive, 
however for some reason Windows XP had to have a bit of the SATA drive 
too. :(

Thankfully the SATA drive is large enough to also have a Linux install 
and a substantial storage area too ie disk is 250Gb in total.

Grub is/was used as the bootloader with its entries in the MBR of the 
first disc. I do not know if this is the IDE or SATA HDD.

Moving back toward ubuntu, I received the 6.06 DVD from Linux Magazine 
and initially used the Live CD function to see what another distro was 
like, especially since ubuntu has had some rave reviews.

Booting off the DVD was a breeze and I selected to install/start ubuntu.
Ubuntu loads and I am presented with the Gnome desktop(gotta say I wanna 
change that first) and an icon to install ubuntu locally.
Went thru all the dialog boxes and 'made' the necessary partitions ie a 
/ and /home. Swap didn't need changing as it was already there from the 
SuSE 10 install, however I did choose to format it.

It is in preparing tbe mount points before the install that I think I 
made a mistake.

The mount point entries were:
/media/sda1	1Gb	Partition 1(sda1)
/media/hda1	6Gb	Partition 1(hda1)
/		10Gb	Partition 3(sda3)	format
swap		981Mb	Partition 2(sda2)	format
/home		150Gb	Partition 4(sda4)	format

I then accept this and the system installs.
The DVD is ejected and I am prompted to press enter to reboot off my new 
system or leave the DVD in and use the Live CD version.
I remove the DVD, press enter and te system reboots.
The next thing I get is a blank black screen with GRUB: on it.
Pressing enter, escape or any key can convince the system to boot into 
ubuntu or Windows, as in theory it should still be there as I did not 
format those partitions.

What do I need to do to get a bootloader installed?Are the mount points 
screwy ie should I type in Windows under one of the mount points and 
select /dev/hda1 as the boot sector?

Help appreciated
P.S. Please make the on screen text white while the system is booting as 
then people will be able to see it.