**** " Imagine; all of everything that is or was, can be reduced to an equation less than one inch long !" M.Kaku *** Just tossing this into the soup for comment; any other users experiencing weird problmes like this ? Or general derission ... ( tho I don't promise toread the derisive commentery if it's aimed at moi <g>) I have in my own workstation ( "purpose built" Pollywell , scsi-3 system ) It has an IBM deskstar 10k rpm scsi drive nearly 18gig . Suddenly the drive starts giving major errors , the OS wont boot , tried reinstall, that just will not complete. It doesn't apparently want to format some section (sda6) BUT, will semi install ,( if you absolutely insist ) ... and some other weird and wonderful adventures of that sort ... BUT, the system is still under warrenty , so.. We call the manufacturer, and tell them of my adventures- surprisingly , they say "no problem ," call IBM and have them ship you a new one, then we'll send someone out to install it for ya ( and keep the warrenty from being voided) so I call IBM , and at first they try to tell me the the Operating System "damaged the drive" they have "heard" that Linux kernals actually do physical damage to the hard drive!" !! ( HUH????! HOwzthat again? ) The 2nd "tech" actually told me the "free software and kernals can and do damage hard drives all the time , tho he , personally hasn't seen this. His Friends also know that no version of PQMagic has ever booted any system ( Windows variations , apparently) Since 3.0 ( I don't remember , but I *think* 3.0 was the first version of PQmagic to support Windows at all and that Was W95.. But I could be wrong about the version number. They apparenlty believe it was a windows Program from the git- go So then they want me to download a program from thier website that they can check the drive w/ .. only, no OS on the drive, makes thatidea rather tough, to do, no? ( IS this getting too "blonde" yet??? ) Eventually they realise that we are talking about a SCSI drive ( hello? , more cafine for this gentleman please...!) So we do a "verify" run from the scsi-bios ... nothing turns up , but I can't get Suse to install on the drive as it finds annomylies and errors, get outeh PQMagic disks and they find an error that is one of those where they tell you there is a "disk" problem and you must "fix it" before PQm can run! This info is only availble on the net ,tho, not in the book that comes w/ the PQM cd... ... well, that's not very helpfful , so IBM "tech" says do a low level format ... ( as some soul on this list had suggested previously ) did that it found and "fixed" ( maybe) a series of errors , However PQM (7.0) still wont run at all.. and Suse 7.3 seems to have found the same difficulty at the same spot as before .. And I can not believe it Is going to be a requirement to run this Low level format every time I want to do a clean install . Not to mention that , as I do a lot of vid stuff, and now adding music and chatter to some of these things , AND a lot of "painting" ( w/ electrons in this case) , and photo editing , and collages and ... well you get the idea... I usually have a lot of variations of items I'm working on all over the disk in a heavy session.. and there just are times when "starting over" is a good idea ( good backups make this possible ) That way I keep the items I want and get all the bits of the odds and ends errased, and I have more space than before .. since an Fdisk format and clean install *should* clear away a lot of the trash and dead wood. But m Fdisk ( partitioning and reformatting the drive during the install *should* be all that is needed , right? ) Eventually I told the guy I was tired of playing w/ him and the drive , it's warrentyed, and the Computer manufacturer says to replaace it.. send me a new one... ( about the only good thing w/ not being able to see well, and having someone stick needles into your eyeballs, it makes one cranky enough that even first level techs can sense the next words out of my mouth are "I want to speak to your supervisor AND his supervisor !, might's well get them all lined up , and not waste any more of my time than heretofore! ) I'd let them play around for nearly a week, I think that is long enough . The other thing I decided ( prior to the needle jabs) was *If* they wanted me to keep on doing this formatting , I wanted it in writing , on IBM stationery and w/ the techs NAME and IBM "man" number as well as the names and numbers of the aforementioned supervisors. Now thier next move is... we have to send the damaged drive to Indonesia , adn AFTER they recieve it there, they will send me a new one !!! WTF has happened to IBM ? I can rememerb them sending me as a one user person , not company, a BOX by overnight delivery ( airborne whatever the company is called ) Pick the laptop up in the morening and have it back to me fixed or a replacement part OR a new Laptop all on overnight Service !!! Now I have to pay ( so htey tell me) to pack adn ship this thing to Malasia ... and also for shipping the new one here ! ( Not likely they can fight that out w/ the builder of that box! It's one of those times when one is greatful for in-laws in the Legal Proffession <G> ) Sorry this diatribe seems so long, but I am now incredulously wondering if any of this stuff holds water ? ( they *did* back down a bit when I said this was a commercial distro from one of their "partners" AND, of course , named SuSE as the disro <VBG> Have you even heard someone sound as if they'd been hit in the stomach ? Right after they'd got up a full head of steam to bulldoze down all ones aurguments. It's a really pequliar sound over a telephone . Anyone had any encounters of this type ? Did I just accidentaly get shifted off to some Space aliens from Jupiter's Moons ? Or am I just too blonde and too medicated ( nothing good ... just antibiotics <sigh>) to understand the "big Picture" here?? I had to ask this group this , as you are such a diverse grop w/ a really wide variation in types of Linux distros as well as experience generally ... TIA -- j afterthought : Everyone is of some use, if only to set a bad example!