all sorted out: thanks to all for your help. nice shiny box, working as new - and i no longer have to use pine to get at my email!
for some reason, my partitions are hda5 through 8 - i have no idea quite how or why i set them up like that, but once i'd found that out, it was all ok. oh, and using the non-corrupt version of the woody CD that i've got was something of a help, too. thanks again, josh
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