sidebar issues

Ok heres the deal. Ive been wrestling with this for hours actually days and Ive finally narrowed down the problem. Part of it is due to my newness to CSS but being that i was modyfing an already existing them which worked i figured change some color here make this smaller there but low and behold problems. So here is the problem I have a two column layout-content on the left, sidebar on the right. The issue is after finally narrowing it down, the footer is making my sidebar dissappear and this only happens when viewing in IE 7. No problem in Firefox. When i take footer code out, in other words remove the div box for the footer my sidebar appears. When i put it back its bye bye sidebar. Is this the float drop bug problem. If so please PLEASE does anybody know the workaround. Ive read and searched my brain out. I dont think i have anymore brain left!!! HEEEELLLPPPP!!!!