A friend of mine advised me to download InternetExplorer-6 from
Microsoft and gave me some instructions how to do this. Being cautious
and unwilling to mess up my c: drive which contains windows98, I
loaded it down to a subdirectory in a partition on a slave disk. A
subsequent attemp to download to disk c: failed.
If anybody knows how to do this now I would highly appreciate to hear.
Did downloading to that partition mess things up and will deleting it
repair the damage? Do I need to remove IE5 from disk c: first? Or what
else do I nee to do?

Try gong on-line and using the knowledgebase on microsoft, it should
tell you . it seem that you should have been able just to update your
IE to 6 rather than having to delete it. Try to find info on knowledge
base. Also check to see if you have a thing called system restore on
your computer (start-programs-asseccories-system tools) if you do just
create a date to go to then install if anything happens you can always
restore your computer back to that day or hour

Failed? How?

If you are actually that worried for your computer, then take this
advice, download the free version of Mozilla, its almost identical to
IE but the newest flaw found in internet explorer that cannot be
patched(posted on Google news last week from Microsoft).  The flaw is
what the latest worm on the net used(well, one of 2 flaws, one is
patched currently) where when you visit a site that has this
worm(large corperations were struck by a russian hacking group that
deals in stolen information)it will auto download a remote connection
that allows the group to retrieve any info without permission or
rights hindrance from your computer(ie credit card #'s, social
security numbers, bank numbers and routing numbers, personal
information worth any amount on the Black Market).  So take this
advice on a proud Microsoft user(still not willing to stick solely
with Unix or Linux OS), don't use their webbrowser if your worried
about your PC.