Rick, with a warm reboot the drive is not recognised at POST. If I shut down and reboot within a minute or two, the same result. Leaving the computer off for an extended period gets the hard drive back (for a short time only, maybe 15 to 20 minutes). I tried using it as a slave drive, with the same result. It was tried in another computer, same result. I think it's about time unfortunately to junk it. Thank you for your reply. Cheers, Alan Priol. Questions: (Things to try or think about...) The COMPUTER locks up, not the harddrive, right? When you re-boot, do you do a warm boot, or a FULL power down and thirty second wait to restart? (Try the second.) Can you put the drive into a second machine and run it as a DATA drive to see what happens? I'd also try another drive in "this" system as a BOOT drive to see if the system was unstable powerwise or something. Hope this helps... Rick Glazier CC:[log in to unmask] . The NOSPIN Group Promotions is now offering Mandrake Linux or Red Hat Linux CD sets along with our NOSPIN Power Linux CD... at a great price!!! http://freepctech.com/goodies/promotions.shtml