I'm baaack!
I appreciate everybody's concern.
The short version of the story is, I was just trying to add some RAM and replace a dead CD-ROM drive.
By the time I was finished screwing up, I had to format the hard drive, replace the replacement CD drive, and reinstall Windows.
I didn't actually break any hardware. My biggest mistake turned out to be blindly following the instructions in Windows Help without thinking through the effects of what they suggested doing.
I'm slowly reinstalling stuff as I find I need it. Before the crash, I had about 400M free on the HD; ATM, I've got over 3.25G free.
In the week I was offline, my Inbox accumulated 192 e-mails, of which only 18 were not spam.
It's sooo good to be back!