Finally got this sorted 100%
best way to get everything working is to do the installation with the noraid option like this:
sme all-generic-ide pci=nommconf noraid
and once the installation is done access to the grub file is available with no issues using this command:
nano -w /boot/grub/grub.conf
if u do not use the noraid option then access to the grub file is not available and if u do manage to get access to the file any updates to the file does not take effect.
this topic is related to this one:
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=39350.0cause this is how it all started. sorry for the double post but i thought it was a separate issue. thanx for all the help!