Don't feel bad, I hosed my XP last night trying to partition the drive
for a dual boot Mepis Linux installation. Never partitioned a drive
before. Got Mepis installed but XP is no more. I may not re-install it,
Mepis is really working great! WE'll have to see as time goes by but it's
VERY nice not having to worry about the newest Mydoom or beagle viruses.


Good idea, most viruses, worms, and trojans are aimed at Windows systems.
However, I would suggest checking out the site
http://isc.incidents.org/
and the info and news links there, to keep up on the nasties that are being
put out for Linux and other operating systems.

I lost my XP not long ago after one or more of the 16 bad sectors bit into the
recovery code on my PC. Geeks on Call saved as much data as they could
from the bad hard drive (music, pictures, and the like), then I got an 80G HD
at Best Buy and the 8-CD/ROM recovery set from HP and rebuilt my system.
The number of worms and trojans lately is hard to believe, but not ALL the
nasties are aimed at Windows alone, and ISC is a good place to keep up with
the latest news on all sorts of viruses, etc.

Clear, Dark, Steady Skies!
(And considerate neighbors!!!)