thanks Harry ! for mentioning the NFTS problem, and more.

i think your right about Microsoft, i believe they are doing things in their Updates that screw with FireFox too. i'm not really qualified to know though.

i did find the hard drive, too, under super\user, i think it is.

i'm going to stop playing w/ knoppix on my main machine though and look for some memory to upgrade my no.2.

thanks for being here, and helping me get my foot into the, JAWS of LINUX .............