Don Maslin wrote: This is true for many operating systems on many computers. Often in the 70's and early 80's drive manufacturers would put circuitry in the drives that would randomly move the heads off the directory tracks after a certain period of time of non-access. (I have several Kennedy 14" SMD drives that will do this. They have the nice feature of a clear enclosure so that you can see what exactly the heads are doing at any point in time!) Tim.