Dan Hughes <[log in to unmask]> writes:
>My friend has a very old Zenith 286 computer with a stock 40mb hard
>drive (sorry, don't know the brand or specs).
BIG SNIP
>Is this a sign that the hard drive is on its last legs?
>
>One other strange thing:  though the autoexec.bat file seemed
>undamaged, when I typed AUTOEXEC at the c: prompt the computer came
>back with "no such file".  Even though it clearly showed up on a DIR
BIG SNIP
     Almost sounds like it might be an unstable hard drive configuration,
or flakey controller...
I have seen almost all of what you said (that I left out) and the data
in every case (on fairly new drives) was almost always there for me.
It seems like more of an ACCESS problem than a drive problem.

On my VERY first computer, I had a one year old drive that was unstable,
and had "multiple personalities".  Hard to describe but,  sometimes some
data would show up, and other times other data would REPLACE it, then
disappear, then return...
I called it my schizophrenic computer from h***, and threatened
Tech Support with burying it in the back yard...  It failed, and I got
very
good at spotting early warning signs quicker...
  Good luck...  Rick

_____________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com
Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]