Search Posts only in 2.8

I did a quick google search and found these answers:

http://web-kreation.com/index.php/wordpress/wordpress-exclude-pages-from-search-results/

http://www.jwrmedia.com/how-to/wordpress/exclude-pages-from-search-results.html

Also I am assuming you mean the search of your wordpress site – not from search engine results.

For me, the search doesn’t work at all – I type any word or phrase in the post (I’ve tried both copy in the body and title of the posts), and every single time it tells me “no results found”, no matter how broad the search, and no matter that I’ve literally cut and pasted words right out of a blog post that I can see on the site, then search for it – nothing.

Can anyone help with this? This is a HUGE issue for us.