after i started up my own distribution based on opensuse inside virtualbox i got this... i was able to boot it PROPERLY last time!

the gparted configuration told me that there was nothing wrong here

Did you try repairing GRUB?

Sorry but how

Have you tried Google? I hear it's excellent for finding solutions to your problems.

Anyway, I can see you're the guy from viewtopic.php?f=7&t=24726.
You're facing on your own the weakness of your development process.
Keeping on modifying system files (what I guess you're doing) on a virtual enviroment can be an option just for quick prototyping.
For anything more serious you'll have to do some RPM packaging of the files you're working on.
Proper use of package management brings you lot of control and ease of maintenance.
Once you have the RPMs you can finally merge your custom work with the openSUSE installer.
Now you can guess that breaking something won't be an issue anymore, if you'll pack the whole thing.
Also installing the distro on other systems than your test VM would be quite easy.
Think about it.

Did you set the partitioning correctly in the Virtualbox settings page? Check under Storage.