F1 through F6 console screens disappeared

[John W Foster <jfoster81747@verizon.net>]

I have a new Debian AMD64 installed system mixed squeeze with a touch of
sid (Chromium browser) I just installed the drivers & management console
for my ATI Radeon 5450 video card & had to make a xorg.conf file then
run aticonfig for that setup. I now have full control of the ATI card
from the xserver screen. Good so far. Then I tried to switch to the F1
screen which I use frequently along with all those console based screens
& it would not switch to the console. I tried installing the "console"
tools & removed kbd but that did not help. Any tips for fixing this.
John