Error 5

[Thomas Scofield]

I have a dual-boot system.  The primary master drive is FAT32 (Windows
2000; 20 Gb) and the primary slave is gentoo linux with kernel 2.4.20 (30
Gb).  I have had grub running well for some time now, so long that I could
not easily recite to you the settings in the configuration file.  As of
the past Friday, things still worked great.  Since then, my activity on
this computer consists of:

1. disconnecting cables in the back.
2. inserting and connecting up an old cdrom drive to be my secondary
   slave (I already had a cdr drive as secondary master)
3. reconnecting cables.

The result is that grub first gave me Error 17.  I decided to leave the
newly-inserted cdrom in the drive bay, but disconnect all lines to
it.  I also checked whether I had loosened any cables to existing
drives.  After that, grub (I cannot tell you which version of grub,
but it is Stage 1.5) gave me Error 5.

I presume that, if I run Norton Utilities, I could probably get the master
boot record on the Windows partition back to the state necessary to boot
directly into Windows, although I have not tried this.  I am reluctant to
do anything which would make my linux drive permanently inaccessible,
because I do not have a grub boot disc.

Can anyone instruct me as to how to proceed?

Thanks.

Tom Scofield