rebuilding a website in WP while old FrontPage site is still up and running

This will depend on what the file name of your current home page is.

If you are lucky, the file for your current home page will be ‘index.html’ or ‘index.htm’. If it’s anything except ‘index.php’ you should have no problems. If this is the case you can upload WordPress and run that basically alongside of the site you have now. WordPress will not affect your current pages, and will only be used when a user requests a URL that’s not an existing file. When it’s ready you can remove the index.html file and your homepage will automatically flick over to WordPress. The downside to this is that it has the potential to get very messy digging around with two different systems in one spot.

If you are already using a home page file called ‘index.php’ them the best idea is to install in a sub-directory or somewhere else, do your work on the site and transfer it. There’s a lot of resources around that can help you out with that one. The main thing that you’ll need when moving the site is that you’ll need to use a tool to update your database to change the hard-coded image/media/link URL’s from the old site to the new site.

Thank you, Michael, that sounds very encouraging. Except for:

The downside to this is that it has the potential to get very messy digging around with two different systems in one spot.

Would it still be better to re-build the WP new web-site on another web-host, and when ready, just point the DNS servers from the old to the new site? This might give me a clean slate, and truly leave FrontPage in the past, rather than dragging bits of it along ….
Thanks for your help.

That is the way that I would definately recommend. The only downside to this is having two web hosting accounts active at the same time (just because it’s costing you money) but if you can get the new sites development done in a resonalbe amount of time then it’s the way to go.

installing WP in a sub directory would not work well for my 2,000 photos when it came time to move the new WP version into the root

You can do a find and replace in the database.

Thanks for the good advice, you have just helped me decide to leave the old website on the old server for a few more months, and at the same time start fresh and new with HostGator and WordPress.
I feel much better already!