Mike Buraczewski asks:

> Back to your problem.  Is the CD connected to the same data cable as the
> HDD?
No, it's set as secondary master.

> In addition, more detail on the error message you receive at boot up
might
> be helpful.  Is there an error message number?  At what point does the
error
> occur?  Does it occur if you boot from a floppy disk?
The message occurs immediatly after the memory count as the bios identifies
the
IDE drives, it reads as follows:

Pri. Master: AOF.0800 QUANTUM FIREBALL ST3.2A
              Ultra DMA Mode-2, S.M.A.R.T. Capable and Status BAD.
Pri Master Hard Disk: S.M.A.R.T. Status Bad, Backup and Replace.
Press F1 to Resume.

(I've removed the CD for replacment)

After F1 is pressed the boot continues normally (i.e. searching boot record
from
foppy-     pri. ide-    starting windows 95)
If the system hangs or is closed without shutting down scandisk runs as
normal,
but if it hangs while installing a programme surface scan also runs, it now
shows 10 or 12
bad sectors, a month ago it showed 2.
I've also encountered Blue screen disk write errors "unable to write to C"

The BIOS is AMI 08/28/97S

Is it possible for the hard drive to be misreporting "damage reports" to
the BIOS on
bootup?
                Thanks for the reply

                                Jez Nattrass.