Usually, having those kind of messages means hardware problem. Try to switch between CS (Cable Sense) and Jumper-configured HD, change the IDE cable, reduce the IDE bus speed, avoid fast HD on the same IDE controler, ... I would strongly advice you to backup your HD. Does your BIOS report a S.M.A.R.T. status for that disk at boot time ? Maybe enable it for once, just to see... If you have "Iminent failure on HD... detected", please replace. We had problems at Plan-Net with misbehaving HDs. One finally collapsed, and all those problems dissepeared. Hopefully, it was part of a (Linux-based software) raid device, so no problem. In between, we replaced the low-cost IDE controler with a better one. The performance increased by a factor of 2.5. Maybe you should purchase an external IDE controler, just to check if it solves the problem ? Such an investment is often a good idea... But for sure, defenitely, if you want to avoid IDE trouble, go for SCSI... Eric Dondelinger a écrit : -- Brent Frère Private e-mail: Brent(a)BFrere.net Postal address: 5, rue de Mamer L-8280 Kehlen Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg European Union Mobile: +352-021/29.05.98 Fax: +352-26.30.05.96 Home: +352-307.341 URL: http://BFrere.net This e-mail signature can be checked if you have the CaCERT certificate installed. Check http://www.CaCERT.org for details.