confused about grants

[jmm 100003]

hi-

tonight i wanted to install the jdbc driver and test a query against it after i connected.
i didnt get it to work yet. and to make matters worse i messed up my grants table access.

when i type the sql statement show grants for root; i know the password it shows BEFORE its encrypted representation

when i type show grants for root@localhost; i only get access to tables that arent including the grants.


for i.e. at the
mysql> use mysql

i want it to not complain that i cant have access

i hope to get this straightened out so i can supply the right getConnection method in java.

thanks for any help,
jim