Mike:
Bless you my son - if I may be so bold? <g>

You were right on: I was just too close to the wood to see the trees ~ you're suggestion brought me back to the point I'd overlooked and you were right on the button. Thnx.

Perhaps you'll permit me one more item of momentary mental aberration? Having restored all parts, there is an orphaned open transction in the log file: Per DBCC OPENTRAN (my file') I get the reponse

Replicated Transaction Information:
Oldest distributed LSN : (25376:19388:5)
Oldest non-distributed LSN : (26044:15699:1)

For the life of me, I do not remeber how to eliminate this error and I have not found the solution in Bools-on-line. This is a replicated database with agents needing to read the log, and of course, they cannot get past this error. Any ideas? Have you met this issue before? I'd really appreciate a clue here if you have one to offer. Thnx very much for the previous tip. /psb