I used this "boot-repair" proggy for the first time the other day and it worked great (installed and ran it booted from the linux liveCD):
boot-repair / Home / Home
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
There's also this: Super Grub Disk which I haven't tried.
grub is a terribly goofy piece of software; you might try installing windows and doing all the upgrades and running it (Windows) a bit before installing linux.
For the time being I've given the whole HDD over to Windows just to test if the same thing happens sans GRUB. So far it's okay but I'll run it for a bit to be sure. I've cloned the drive after the fresh install so won't be too much of a problem to roll back if need be.
I've been dual booting Windows (various versions) with Linux (various distros) for years and years now and never once had a problem with GRUB (even when on the same HDD as Windows). Weird it should happen now - and only on one PC. Still, first time for everything I suppose!
I'll add Linux as a Wubi install at a later date and see what happens then.
I've used Super GRUB Disk in the past but had forgotten about it in all honesty. Thanks for the heads-up.
And thanks to everyone else for your info/advice too.
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