completely new but have read all the help/documentation and (nearly all) forum posts regarding SEF/SEO problems but i am having a particular problem that i can find an answer to. (if this problem has already got an answer please let me know where

using Siteground shared hosting
Joomla v1.5.7 (new install with no alterations/addtions)
when turn SEO url's on in global configuration (i have had to alter htaccess.txt to .htaccess ) the functionality works well.
the problem comes when i go to any other page on the site, the template fails to load and i have just the base content without styling etc...
some fixes i have already looked into:
- I have installed joomla on the root directory
- I have checked: apparently mod_rewrite is on in the server (however when i "uncomment" the mod_rewrite is on line in htaccess i get a server error 500 ((might this indicate that mod_rewrite is not on for my server?)))
- I have also tried "uncommenting" rewritebase \ in htaccess (i do not get a sever error 500, but this make no difference to the template problem)
I have found one other forum post with this problem, but no real details about what fixes they might have tried...
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f ... w=previous
any help or work around very appriciated (i really need SEO and templates to both work.....)
