Being in the presence of five cats who begrudgingly allow us to cohabitate with them, I can say with great authority that cat fur and dander has the ability to accumulate in great quantities in and on virtually any surface at an alarming rate (and that's with cats who more or less define the term "inert"; more active ones tend to boil off residue at an even higher rate). We figure the accumulation rte is about enough to build a new cat All that said, I've yet to have any failures that I can attribute to fur or dander, save for the occasional fan that bitches about wanting to be cleaned. However, every disk drive that I've got has sealed HDAs, so YMMV, big-time. Surprisingly, I've not had issues with keyboards (save for the time that Kamali, the 18+ pound Maine Coon, snapped a keycap off while traversing a Sun type-5 keyboard) or monitors (despite the fact that Tempest finds 21" Sun monitors to be The Most Perfect Place to Bask). Cat _piss_, on the other hand, is about the most destructive material to metal and electronics I've ever encountered. As for training -- the spray bottle technique works only with weak-minded cats; the more willful ones simply narrow their eyes and continue misbehaving while looking at you. Sticky tape is only modestly effective, with the effect rapidly attenuating as the tape loads up with cat fur. Oh, we have a Canine Unit as well. She flops over on her back and shows her belly anytime a cat walks near. While cats are allowed near the machines, the dog isn't, as she has a distinct bull-in-china-shop quality about her... -- Chris Kennedy chris(a)mainecoon.com http://www.mainecoon.com PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97