Dear John: Thanks for the reply. It would seem indeed that you have had some unfortunate experiences with windows. I too am in the process of weaning myself from windows, but as I noted before, there are still too many programs that have not made the transition to the linux environment. I would like to let you know that I have my system up and running again thanks to extensive backups that I had made. The basic problem was the removal of the second (linux) partition, which I could only accomplish finally by using Ontrack's disk mangager to repartion the thing to one partition. W98 then installed without any problem, I used FIPS to repartion again and installed Debian as usual. I would like to comment about the partition-disaster-HOWTO, which unfortunately seems to me to be merely an advertisement for a non-free (in the sense that you have to pay money for it, as well) program called Partition Magic. Experiences such as mine, if shared broadly, should help to make the transition to linux less traumatic.
Thanks again, Roy Little