As I have the drives in RDB's I have a boot partition on each Linux drive,
that contains copies of what would normally be in the /boot directory of
any given OS in a named directory; ie /suse9.1, /man10, /slackware9.1.
Grub is installed in the MBR of each Linux drive, so it does not matter
which is hda.

I have, also, multiple menu.lst.123 files in the /grub directory, where
the numbers following menu.lst represent the disk order. When I shuffle
the disk order, I copy the appropriate menu.list.xyz to menu.lst before I
reboot. I also have fstab.n files, where n=(1-4) for the same purpose, so
each OS can boot from whichever of the 4 bays it is in. I don't move the
drives, normally, but if I need something on another disk, not currently
in the machine, I can remove the Windows drive, and replace it with a
linux drive, after changing to the appropriate menu.lst, before shutdown.

If drive hda should fail, removing it from the system, and replacing it
with any other will boot at least one Linux OS, from which I can do the
fstab changes to boot any of the others.

Most of the menu.lst entries point to kernels on the boot partition, with
another stanza pointing to the kernel on the / partition of that OS, so
that I can boot from either. New kernel updates are done in the /boot
directory, tried, and if working properly, copied to the boot partition.
If the update is borked, the kernel on the boot partition is still
bootable.

Some examples are below;

title Mandrake10.0 part
        kernel (hd0,0)/man10/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdc3 devfs=mount resume=/dev/hdc2 splash=verbose vga=788
        initrd (hd0,0)/man10/initrd.img

title Mandrake10.0 boot
        kernel (hd1,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdc3 devfs=mount resume=/dev/hdc2 splash=verbose vga=788
        initrd (hd1,2)/boot/initrd.img

title Suse9.1 A part
    kernel (hd0,0)/suse9.1-a/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 vga=0x31a splash=verbose desktop resume=/dev/hda2 showopts
    initrd (hd0,0)/suse9.1-a/initrd

title Suse9.1 A boot
    kernel (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 vga=0x31a splash=verbose desktop resume=/dev/hda2 showopts
    initrd (hd0,2)/boot/initrd

    [ I have a second mirrored Suse9.1 on hdg, which I am writing from. The two synced (except for fstab)
    Suse9.1s act as bootable backups of each other; if hdg dies, a reboot to Suse9.1 A has me back in
    business ]

title Suse9.1 G
    kernel (hd0,0)/suse9.1-e/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdg3 vga=0x31a splash=verbose desktop resume=/dev/hda2 showopts
    initrd (hd0,0)/suse9.1-e/initrd

title Suse9.1 G-boot ###
    kernel (hd3,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdg3 ide=nodma vga=0x31a splash=verbose desktop resume=/dev/hda2 showopts
    initrd (hd3,2)/boot/initrd

    [ New kernel would boot only in failsafe, adding ide=nodma to the
    above fixed the problem, ### tells me on boot which stanza has the fix. ]

title Suse9.1 G boot Failsafe
    kernel (hd3,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hdg3 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off vga=normal noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0  3
    initrd (hd3,2)/boot/initrd

    [ This failsafe is included, as I'm testing a new kernel at present. ]

title SuSE 8.2
    kernel (hd0,0)/suse8.2/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda15 vga=0x31a  hdb=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi hddlun=0 splash=verbose showopts
    initrd (hd0,0)/suse8.2/initrd

title SuSE 8.2-111
    kernel (hd0,0)/suse8.2/vmlinuz-111 root=/dev/hda15 vga=0x31a  hdb=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi hddlun=0 splash=verbose showopts
    initrd (hd0,0)/suse8.2/initrd

    [ Choice of kernels for Suse8.2 ]

title Slackware 9.1
    kernel (hd0,0)/slackware9.1/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda12 vga=791 hdb=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi

    [ Note that Slack has no initrd, as there are no modules, everything's compiled into the kernel ]

title Windows E
    root (hd2,0)
    map (hd2) (hd0)
    map (hd0) (hd2)
    makeactive
    chainloader +1

This boots either Win98SE, or Win2K via the ntldr/boot.ini on hde1.

The rest of menu.lst is, more or less, repeats of the above, except for
different OS's. The pattern for the stanzas should be apparent from the
above, and includes examples for hda, hdc, hde, and hdg, [ grub (hd0),
(hd1), (hd2), and (hd3) ]

HTH ;-)

--
imotgm