== Q: How do I ensure mod-rewrite is enabled? If it’s a matter of making log entries in wp with ‘other than default permalinks’ selected, then this is fine and I can post to the wp blog. ==
But is your URI “pretty”? As in looking like http://yoursite.com/about and not http://yoursite.com/?page_id=2
If it’s the latter, then your mod_rewrite is not working or not enabled. Are you on Linux/Unix server or Windows?
Find .htaccess located at root of your WP installation. So if you installed WP in domain root, you would find .htaccess file here http://yourdomain.com/.htaccess If you have access to cpanel, open it up with editor and copy the content and paste here.
== and NOT via webhost scripts ==
Webhost scripts being referred to here are simplescripts and fantastico, etc provided by webhosting services which have caused many issues especially with BP.
A manual installation just involves uploading WP files to server via FTP/cpanel/etc, creating database, then running http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/install.php and going through the process.
== I have now installed BP/WP on the root folder for the domain whereas I had it under the subdir blog. ==
Not exactly what it’s meant, but it’s good that you have WordPress at domain root.
After you have successfully installed WP and set permalinks to other than the default permalink in dashboard menu Settings > Permalinks, you need to check that you have pretty permalinks working.
Then go to dashboard menu Plugins > Add New, install then activate BuddyPress plugin.