Bill Corwin wrote:
[*SNIP*] I did not want to disturb anything on my C: drives! I studied the literature for several days to avoid doing anything destructive but I did not want to delay any longer! I downloaded from cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/7.4.0/i386/iso-cd/debian-7.4.0-i386-netinst.iso debian-7.4.0-i386-netinst.iso 290,455,552 02/23/2014 09:44 PM [[snip]
What you needed was a Live image. https://www.debian.org/CD/live/ HTH