I must say I'm having the same kind of problems. I just don't believe I'm incapable of doing this. Things I have installed go missing. When I try and Download-install them again, it says it has already got the download (but doesn't continue with the install !). When I do the install it says OK, but there is no new launching icon. When I launch it from the terminal it says "command not found" !!!
Sometimes xfe says /mnt/sdb1 has a /tce, sometimes it doesn't, same with /mnt/sr0. None of the 3 grubs are currently installable, although I have installed all of them at earlier times.
I keep thinking there must be something I don't understand, but I can't find it in the wiki. There must be a better way of doing this - nobody would spend as much time as I have on it. A .zip file that can be extracted to a USB stick and reboot, giving a desktop with a terminal, file manager and browser and gparted, would only take 10 minutes to be a useful rescue tool.