c drive (primary) ntfs for xp...hda1
d drive (logical) ntfs for xp.....hda2
h drive (extended partion from d drive) ext 3 \root dir.....hda6 (not sure why linux recognized it as 6 and not 3)
i drive (extended partion from d) swap....hda7
OK, something is screwey here. hda1 looks good. If your second partition is logical, it should be hda5, not hda2. If it's showing up as hda2, then it's primary which may cause problems with Windows, but Linux should be OK with it. Extended partitions are primary partitions that contain logical partitions, but they themselves do not contain filesystems - just other partitions. An extended partition should show up as a primary designation (hda1-hda4).

If your description of your scheme is accurate, your partitions should look something like this in Linux fdisk:

hda1 primary NTFS Windows
hda2 extended
hda5 logical NTFS
hda6 logical ext3 /
hda7 logical swap

But I think this is all moot, because I don't think any of this would affect your grub setup.

-told linux to boot dos by default in bootloader settings.
Have you checked the delay setting before booting Windows? If it's set to 0, you wouldn't see grub and just go straight to Windows.

-No Boot partion (perhaps I need one?)
No, you don't normally need that.