Cannot add a new Database to my project in Visual Studio 2008

Wow, sorry about that! It sounds like you're doing everything right. You seem to have drawn the short straw -- there were a few people who ran into similar troubles with SQL Server Express. We made a post on the Head First Labs forum about it:

http://forums.oreill...-in-chapter-1-/

We're busily working on the second edition of Head First C# -- last night I was just working on the new version of chapter 1. Luckily, the beta version of Visual Studio 2010 now supports local databases using SQL Server Compact Edition (*.sdf files), which are generally less problematic and (I believe) don't depend on SQL Server Express. I think this will make everyone's life easier.

You can download the Visual C# Express 2010 beta here if you want to take a look:

http://msdn.microsof...o/dd582936.aspx

You can give chapter 1 a shot in VS2010 Beta using a local database, if you're brave. I can't promise anything, but if I can get chapter 1 in reasonable shape in the near future, I'll work with the O'Reilly folks to put out a PDF of the draft, just to give you (and anyone else running into the same problem) a helping hand. I'll make sure to post about it in the forum if/when we do that (which will hopefully be soon!).

Luckily, there's nothing in chapter 2 that depends on what you do in chapter 1 -- you start with entirely new projects. So if you absolutely can't get it working, and you don't feel like trying your luck with the VS2010 beta, you can skip to chapter 2 without any trouble.

I hope this helps!