Well, unfortunatly, I understand, technology wise, where they are coming from. They used to require everyone to use 360k 5.25 disks. They only made the switch to 3.5s because the 360k disks became so hard to get, and they weren't very durable. Their software will actually run just fine off two 360k disks on an XT system. And in fact, the software has never changed (they could do the whole thing off one 720k disk now, but it would have involved changing proceedures at all their interviewing sub sites... you are talking about asking people that are lucky they know how to turn a computer on, to change how they do interviews). The company (they split into 2 after the 720k switch) opted to use a double 720k disk approach to keep proceedure the same. They also opted to use 720 because most PCs had that in them at the time they did the switch (1.44's were newer, and although widely available, not as likely at the time to be installed in the computers the interviewing sites already owned). Also, 720k drives were cheaper, so those that had to upgrade could do so cheaper. Now it has stayed that way, simply because outside of not being able to get DD disks, they have thousands of interviewing sites in the US all geared up to work with 720k disks. I personally think moving to HDs would be a non issue, as I suspect that most of the sites have already long since upgraded their computers (I have exactly one computer in the field with a try 720k drive, one out of about 30 used on these jobs), but the companies don't see it that way. They don't want to force the tens of thousands of interviewing computers to be upgraded. They hate me, because I have all 7 of our sites ripping shutters off their disks so they stop damaging my drives (which they refuse to pay for when they are damaged). This causes them to have to replace the hard to find disks (which also means fewer support calls to me when one of the well overused disks fails and generates errors and confuses/scares my interviewing staff). Add to that the fact that I know how to bypass ALL their software security (it really is a joke, their "security" consists of hiding files and directories, know the names, and you can bypass it... know of a little program called ATTRIB and the security disappears). I scare them more than anything else. They have a few interview script programmers who handle everything. The new jobs are sent via modem to a master machine at each site (running a pretty pick and choose front end to kermit and copy). They mail disk packs to the sites before each job, and the disk packs are nothing more than the same tired, beatup old boot disks, and reused, reformatted (using format /q I am sure) interview disks. They stick new lables on the interview disks that reflect the current job number. Old labels get peeled off when the pile gets high enough that the disk no longer fits in the drive!. When they do a job, an interview disk is inserted into the master computer, where the job files are copied to it, and a text file is tagged that the disk has been used. When the day is done, the disk is put back into the master computer, the data files copied to the hard drive, and the computer is set to wait for a phone call, so it can upload the day's interviews. I don't think anyone there knows enough about anything to risk change. It has been a case of, this was state of the art when it was designed... but years later, it is badly out of date, but no one is employed anymore that understands technology (at least not in the division that handles this stuff), so they are all just afraid to make changes, because they don't know WHAT they are doing, just how to do it. The could avoid all this with a simple proceedure change. That is, stop mailing out disks, and update their boot disks to support 1.44 drives. Then just tell each site to buy a pack of HD disks, and reuse as needed. The sending and forcing people to use provided disks, is useless (and a waste of money on their part). Again, it dates back to when floppies were actually expensive, and they didn't want each site to have to buy their own. I'm not sure when the last time was that I "paid" for disks, as I always buy them when I can get a rebate equal to or above the cost of the disk pack. I have of course recommended this to them a number of times... but they don't want anything to do with change. "I fear change, so I will keep my bush" -Quizzno's -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>