Grub bootloader not working on any distro I use..

[Jekktis]

I've been having trouble with several linux installs that have failed for the same reason. That being that it acts like grub doesn't exist, it just goes straight to windows. It did it on Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Debian.
Right now I just want to install mint, too much going on in my life to spend hours configuring anything more complex then that.

[ttocsNroc]

I have the same problem, do you have a z68 motherboard with Marvell 6 Gb/s controller? I cannot post a link Google marvell controller z68 grub, there is a page on the Ubuntu launchpad Bug #880143, I think this is my problem maybe the same for you?

Update
When I leave the USB pen drive I installed from the system will boot. For days I have tried to install from CD's, DVD's, and now USB, I still think something is wrong with GRUB but this works for now. Once in the real OS (it is not the installer, it has my account I create with password during install) I tried ran:
sudo grub-install /dev/sda
Installation finished. No error reported.
but I still cannot boot without the USB.

[Rubberman]

If you had a USB device loaded on the system, then the boot loader was probably installed on that, per ttocsNroc's response. If so, then you need to reinstall one of the Linux systems with the USB device detached from the system. Ubuntu and Mint use the newer (not necessarily better) grub2 boot loader. I'm not sure about current versions of Debian, but since Ubuntu and Mint are based on it, that is probably the case.