Paul Abrahams [mailto:abrahams@acm.org]
and started over from scratch. But then, that's just me.
In fact, I did just that and still had problems with the simplest Windows install, which confirmed my suspicion that hardware was involved and was screwing me from the beginning. I thought I had fixed those problems, but even now, when I've installed Windows but not yet installed Linux, Windows sometimes fails on bootup and sometimes doesn't. That sort of inconsistent behavior is almost certainly caused by hardware intermittency.
I've checked the drive itself several times with the Maxtor utility (from the Ultimate Boot CD) and also zeroed it out completely.
Something else to consider... have you added or upgraded hardware in that computer, from the time it was new? Maybe the power supply was barely adequate to the original configuration, and is now "fighting above its weight", as they say. The result, if that's the case, is usually intermittent glitches as multiple peak loads happen to occur simultaneously - say some demand on the video card, while the CD/DVD drive is spinning up, while the network card is pushing packets, while your USB nite-lite is on, and your USB desk-fan/hula dancer is twirling.... :-) A nice, quiet, super-stable 400W or 450W unit is simple to install and not too costly. Just a thought, if you haven't nailed down other causes, and the results of your testing so far suggest that the drive itself might be in fine shape, but it intermittently suffers reduced power when something else in your machine makes demands that the power supply isn't up to. Been there, done that (after _much_ frustration). Kevin The information contained in this electronic mail transmission may be privileged and confidential, and therefore, protected from disclosure. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to this message and deleting it from your computer without copying or disclosing it.