It's always fascinated me how people have such strong opinions of one particular drive manufacturer over another. Commonly one will say that they have a certain make of drive and it's never failed them and they've tried this other one and they're dying left and right, etc. ad nauseum. I come at this issue from the perspective of a field service engineer and subsequently independant consultant. The fact is that, particularly with IDE drives, no matter the manufacturer, it's purely the luck of the draw whether one is blessed with a good production run. I get the feeling that, to cut costs, most manufacturers have the QC people working a couple of days a week, and even then they're not exactly the best paid position in the sweatshop. The same goes for cars - you just find the one you're psychologically comfortable with. No bearing on statistical reality, but to the buyer that manufacturer's product will always be superior, and faults will be more tolerable than those of the manufacturer who's product is "in the doghouse" for whatever reason. As for Dell going the way of PacBell, etc., well I can only say we've got what we asked for. We wanted cheap computing, we got cheap computing. If they raised their standards and correspondingly their prices, we'd run like heck to the next guy who offered their system for a couple of quid less. If you want a rock-solid system with total manufacturer's support and guaranteed uptime and all that jazz, you'd have to shell out over $50,000 plus support contracts, etc. Just like in the old days of some of the larger systems we discuss on this forum. Just my $12.34 (Like everything else here in Bermuda, my opinion has to be shipped here and customs duty paid <grin>). With apologies for the rant, Dennis (not Miller :-)