Thanks for the input everyone. Yes I understand it is a process, my issue is I have only temporary access to hispeed in which to reacquire windows, and since the Mint install attempt, and crash I cannot load windows, which has programs I need in for my work. The other issue is I can't save even bookmarks on this Linux on usb drive, or anything else like downloaded programs outside of synaptic. If someone could help me there, I can possibly continue working this from home. I am just learning,, so I don't know how to accomplish saving things I need using the Mint on usb. I have another large usb drive with me that I could save things to if I learn how to accomplish this, but it has another Ubuntu/Fedora on it and I couldn't delete it. I would move the partition as you recommend [I will try anything you guys recommend if you tell me step by step how to accomplish it, or where to read the step by step directions]. I love Linux, it is soo much better than ms, yet I'm not saavy in terminal use, even though I can succeed with precise directions. Certainly this current current adventure is educating me. I've learned very much this journey into Linux. I'm thinking the boot for Windows as well as for Mint need fixing. Otherwise it seems the partitions are functional as soon as the proper settings are in place and I get Mint installed on sda3. So can someone please confirm my perspective here, and tell me how to get grub where it needs to be, and fix the Windows load. I'll read to try and figure out how to move the swap to the position after Windows, as I await your directions. I am always very grateful for your assistance and efforts. I appreciate what a gift your work is to me. I can't get to windows to see how old this machine is, yet I think windows 7 had recently come out. I can mount the partitions with the Mint 'Manage Drive and Media' prog. I unmounted everything to play with partition size. So my question is how do I update grub to include windows, and how do I move the swap to the position after the windows partition. I did update grub in terminal. To Smooth Buddah: If I could get a virtual machine on the usb drive [does that mean in the Live Linux OS'?] that would allow my use of my Windows programs for work, and be able to access a dial-up connection I could live with the situation till I get it stable. Now that I'm registered with the forum I may be able to continue to get your help, but I must download pkg on hispeed. Again, thanks for all the help.