multisite subfolder install login redirect problem

I’m having a problem that others have posted similar issues with but none of the suggested solutions have worked for me and I’m desperate for help as we have groups abroad that need to start using the blogs.

I have wordpress running in our root folder (mysite.edu) and installed also in a subfolder (mysite.edu/blogs) for blog use only. At the time it was set up it was necessary to do this to keep the blog users from the main site. We now have 6 blog sites that we need that all need to be their own sites (mysite.edu/blogs/belgium, mysite.edu/blogs/hongkong, etc.), so we enabled multisite on the subfolder installation but the sites are 404 not found and any attempt to log into the sites fails and ends up with a redirect from the dashboard link (http://mysite.edu/blogs/hongkong/wp-admin/) to http://mysite.edu/wp-login.php?redirect_to=http%3A%2F%2Fmysite%2Fblogs%2Fhongkong%2Fwp-admin%2F&reauth=1

How can I remove this redirect? The wp-config file and .htaccess files were from the boilerplate. I can post them if it would help?