GRUB 'savedefault --once' operation

[Brett Russ]

I am trying to figure out why the savedefault cmd with the once option 
is rendering my machine unbootable.  Here is what I do first:

$GRUB_SHELL --batch --device-map=$GRUB_DIR/device.map <<EOF >> $GRUB_LOGF
 root (hd0,2)
 setup --stage2=$GRUB_DIR/stage2 --prefix=$GRUB_DIR (hd0)
 quit
 EOF

I omitted some steps (such as 'grub-install --just-copy') but basically 
this successfully installs onto all 4 HDDs.  (hd0,2) is the / partition 
and is a RAID1.  $GRUB_DIR is /boot/grub which is on the / partition 
mentioned above.  grub.conf is setup to boot entry 4 by default and 
menu.lst is linked to grub.conf.  I don't think the contents of these 
files is bad because the system boots into the grub menu with entry 4 
highlighted no problem and can boot into any image selected.

If, however, I issue the following command after the above install batch 
command:

$GRUB_SHELL --batch --device-map=$GRUB_DIR/device.map <<EOF >> $GRUB_LOGF
 root (hd0,2)
 savedefault --stage2=$GRUB_DIR/stage2 --default=0 --once
 quit
 EOF

My machine hangs at the subsequent boot after the loading stage2 message.

device.map looks like this:
# leading comment
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/hdb
(hd2) /dev/hdc
(hd3) /dev/hdd

In trying to figure out what happened by running the savedefault cmd I 
looked at the stage1 sector and mapped it to the byte offsets in the 
grub documentation.  Viewed with 'hexdump -x', here is the boot sector:

offset  value
------  ------
3e      0203
40      00
41      80
42      8000
44      4b4c 0003
48      eafa 7c50
1fe     aa55

I tried to find stage2 using 'dd if=/dev/hda seek=<different variations 
of the value (in decimal) found at offset 44>' and viewing it with 
hexdump but I must be missing something because I wasn't seeing anything.

My questions:

-how to find stage2 on disk so I can verify that the saved entry byte is 
the only thing that changes when I do the savedefault?

-what am I doing wrong with the savedefault command (with the --once 
option) that is causing it to fail boot after running it?

I can supply more details if needed...

thanks!
Brett