monitor swap-out and regeneration of deleted xorg.conf

[rlharris@broadcaster.org (Russell L. Harris)]

Running Etch on a i386, I switched monitors and ran "dpkg-reconfigure
xserver-xorg"; but the system returned an error message, saying that the
configuration file would not be written because it had been customized.

Another problem is that the configuration routine would not allow me to
specify monitor parameters (horizontal synchronization rate, vertical
refresh rate, desired resolutions).

I tried also "dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg" and had the same
result.

Next, I deleted "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" and again ran "dpkg-reconfigure
xserver-xorg", but X would not start.

Is there a way to regenerate "xorg.conf"?

What is the proper procedure to follow when swapping out a monitor?

RLH