Thanks, all -- I understand more now, but apparently not enough.

I'm unable to set up a bootable disk, so one thing I did
was to create /dev/hda1 as a little /boot partition, which is
mounted onto /boot in the root partition.  But still no luck.
All the details are listed below.

Current problems:

 "LILO wasn't able to install" in the MBR.
   [Q1] Any way to force this manually?

 LILO won't install in the root partition either, which is
   understandable since that's not a valid boot sector.

 I can't create a boot disk that will use the image on the
   hard disk.

Questions:
 1. Why can't I install LILO?
 2. Why can't I create a boot disk?
 3. Is my root partition going to be too small?

In general I'm guessing I'll have to bypass some of
the Debian scripted installer.

Is my BIOS the problem, and if so, why doesn't
the little /boot partition work around it?

I have Phoenix BIOS 4.0 Release 6.0 1997,
on a Pentium 166 MMX and 128 MB of memory.
The partition layout is now as follows:

 dev/ type     Mounted    MB   #Blocks
 hda1 Primary  /boot    8.23   1281 used, 6065 free.
 hda2 Primary  /      123.38   2175 used, 907 free.
 hda3 Primary  /usr  1200.90
 hda4 Extended
 hda5 Logical  /swap   65.81
 hda6 Logical  /home 2319.53
 hda7 Logical  /tmp   148.06
 hda8 Logical  /var   501.75
 hda9 Logical  /work 2130.35

Even though /boot is a separate partition of 8.23 MB,
LILO will not install in it.  Previously, FreeBSD was
booting off this same disk somehow.

I also can't build a boot diskette on this machine!
It fails instantly saying maybe I'm write-protected,
or am talking to the wrong device.

I was able to use "dd" to copy a kernel onto that
device with no objection from the system, so the
floppy drive seems just fine.

thank,

Vic