OK, here's the scenario....

I have been using a dual boot system from one 160 GB hard drive. I have three partitions. The first is hda1 with Windows XP. Then I have my Debian sarge loaded into hda2. I couldn't get past how easy it was to work with both systems using Knoppix so I created a third partition using qtparted and loaded a knoppix boot there. (I know, knoppix is supposed to be used from CD/DVD but the basic setup is sufficient for my needs and I have already scratched up 3 CD's and DVD's and had plenty of disk space so I figured why not?)

Loaded Knoppix into the third partition and it booted fine. The problem is that it no longer showed my Debian partition, just Knoppix and the XP boots. I read that there was a workaround for fixing the Debian mbr and from knoppix did the root console, start grub, root (hd0,1), setup (hd0), then reboot.

I'm a total Linux noob I know so you can imagine my surprise when I tried to reboot and all I get is a little smiley face at the bottom of the screen .

Well, at least I still have one working Knoppix CD left so any help here would be appreciated.

I'm going to keep scouring google for potential help. I will be checking back. Any ideas other than the obvious "Well, you pretty much screwed up so you might as well start from scratch" and I will be forever in your debt.