protecting images works, but other rewrites don't

I hope this is in the right place....

I have a test folder, where I've been trying to learn about mod_rewrite, like so many other people. Unfortunately, everything I try does not work, either giving me a 500 or 404 error. I asked my host for help, but he couldn't figure it out either. I then asked someone else with more knowledge about rewrites, but every suggestion he came up with also didn't work. Based on the tutorials and examples I've seen, I feel that something should have worked by now.

When I checked phpinfo(), mod_rewrite did not show up as a loaded module. However, when I asked my host for help, he didn't indicate that it had been disabled. He also provided me with a hotlinking protection rewrite earlier, which works.

So after this summary of a 2 week frustration, anyone idea how or why things aren't working? It was a basic index.php?section=xyz redirect, nothing too fancy.

Thread moved from 'PHP Coding' to 'Server Administration' by Andrew.

Reason: