Ronald,

Do you and your friend swap floppy disks? or share software?

I wouldn't completely rule out a virus.  It's a funny thing about virii...
they move about.  Just because you formatted the drive and "suddenly" had
the same problem, doesn't mean that a virus is not at work.  It is very
possible that the virus had already moved to the floppy disk BEFORE you
formatted the hard drive and then when you formatted the drive it copied
itself back.

Other than a virus, I would guess that the disk drives are just wearing out.

Jim Meagher
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----- Original Message -----
From: Ronald G Jobe <[log in to unmask]>

> I just had a friend show me a problem I've been working to solve too.
> Sporadically,
> we will each get a message that the master boot record has been changed.
> When
> that happens, the CD-ROM drive is no longer available.  A temporary work
> around
> has been to FDISK /MBR, but I'd like to fix the problem for good.  This
> is seen on 2
> different systems.  Please don't suggest it might be a virus.  I've had
> this happen
> right after formatting the drive,

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