> => The workstation is then unable to boot like if the MBR had been
 >    corrupted. The string "GRUB" is displayed and the boot process
 >    stops here.


I had the same issue with the word "GRUB" displayed only and then hanging, in my system 
(but with IDE HD), and what I did was to boot from the SL first CD, choose rescue mode, 
used "chroot" as a message was displaying, to make the mounted partition a root one, and 
then just did "grub install /dev/hdc".


Now when booting, it displays "GRUB running stage1.5", hungs for a while there, then 
displays a message like "GRUB loading, please wait...", hungs for a while there too, and 
then boots successfully.