Woody Killed PCMCIA & Root in Gnome

["Doc - KD4E" <e.net@verizon.net>]

Just upgraded from Progeny-Debian 2.2.18 to Woody, or 
so I thought.

When I boot 2.2.18 still shows up but Grub has changed appearance
as has Gnome.

Problems:

Cannot access my pcmcia nic (3Com 589c which worked perfectly 
prior to the upgrade).

When I remove then re-insert the card there are no tones.

When I reboot, Grub won't recognize Root but accepts my user account.
Problem is that the user account doesn't permit me to edit and change 
things as I need to.

If I break out of Gnome using Log Out and then Ctrl-Alt-F2 at the 
Grub login I can get to a command line where I can log in as Root 
but then I lack access to gedit (at the moment I lack the patience to 
learn the eccentricities of vi and the other command line editors).

Can someone suggest how I repair Grub re. Root and how I then 
repair PCMCIA.  Since I cannot access the Internet from my laptop
I cannot download anything new for the moment.

Thanks!  Doc