[NTLUG:Discuss] Dangerous Newbie Question

[mike]

> I lost the battle because I need to keep my email running. I really hate
> doing that because I want to solve the problems rather than do the
> microsoft reinstall thing. It helps me learn this OS faster.
>
> Do you guys have any ideas of what I could have done to fix this? 

The biggest issue I see is that your test box is your production box.  You 
could have kept your 'problem' open longer if it wasn't keeping you offline.  
 
Whenever I try something new, I always keep a wall between the stuff I know 
works and the stuff I'm testing.  I generally buy 2 of everything (2 at the 
cheap end is always far less than one @ the high end)  and keep a test/backup 
box on a video/keyboard/mouse switch.  This allows me to leave a 
test-in-progress broken as long as I want it that way..... without risking my 
data, or keeping me offline, etc. 

Short of keeping 100% duplicate hardware, get a second hard disk for testing 
stuff out and simply remove your primary drive from the box to run tests, or 
keep both disks in your box and modify the boot drive in your bios (if your 
bios will support that.)  

At the very least, save a chunk of your drive and make it a second linux 
partition for testing.  You can boot it from floppy or easily configure lilo 
to handle 2 different linux partitions.  It helps to map the 'test' linux 
partition into the 'safe' linux filesystem so you can look at the 
configuration and logs after a crash (or while your online doing research 
with the 'safe' box.) That is.. mount the 'test' root directory into the safe 
root at /mnt/testroot/    ....

I don't use linux for serving anything, so I can't help you with what was 
broken.