Well folks the problem is solved I simply booted from the cdrom and choose to do an upgrade. I took the opportunity to upgrade a few features of my install, at the end of the upgrade process It offered to make a boot disk so I made the boot disk and as if I wasn't happy enough it also allowed me to reinstall lilo so I did that as well. Now if it happens again I'm prepared. The only setback to this solution is that linux reinstalls generic video drivers and makes them default so the x windows has to be setup again. (which is a pain because I'm using the new voodoo3 2000 video card with a newer 17 inch monitor) but I got linux back without loosing any data. So thanx to all of you who responded to my help plea perhaps I can repay the favour once I get past this learning phase. Thanx again. --Chris
