10.2 64 RC1 install experience

Just an interested lurker here (not a programmer) and did a 10.2 RC1 64 
install using the download isos.  I have an AMD64  Skt 754 Athlon64 3200 
and  MB K8T800G FSB 800 DDR 400 GA-K8VT800 Pro motherboard. with 1G DDR 
memory.   I use Win 32 XP Home as my main OS, but have been dual booting 
and attempting to learn linux with MDK since ver 9.1.  

I had ~6.5 G HD space partioned for the MDK 10.1 root directories on 
hda5, hda6 as swap and 35 G partioned for my home partition on hda7.   
During the install of MDK 64 RC1, I decided to split hda5 partition in 
two since 10.1 was reporting 40% usage.  
My problem:
During 10.2 RC1 64 install partioning, the program asked me to identify 
only the location for root (I chose the newly created hda8), but did not 
ask for the home or swap locations. Should it have or is this a bug?  
The new installation started fine, but created a new /home directory on 
hda8 root partition rather than using my original /home on hda7, 
although it properly recognized and used the former swap partion hda6.  
As it did not find hda7, it did not find my original user name.  Also, 
the boot loader did not recognize the original 10.1 partion.   I added 
this to the loader, but 32 bit 10.1 now starts up with many items 
failing (including mouse driver).   I mounted the hda7 partition, but 
cannot read many directories due to permissions.

10.2 RC1 64 seems to work very well for me so far (I did have to 
manually configure the sound) and perceptually appears to be much 
faster.    I would like to continue experimenting with this version 
(eventually delete 10.1 partition), but am wondering what I have to do 
to get my home directory back to hda7 and read my old files?
G.Steeves