Make sure the datagridview is visible

I had an identical problem (I'd set the row background color but it wouldn't work until the fade out and fade in again of the form had happened once, that containded the datagridview) and found that it was remedied by ensuring the data grid view was visible when setting the row background color.
I'm using VS2008 too for a winforms project. .not sure if it matters, but. . .