If scandisk (boot from floppy with scandisk)won't cure your problem, look in the bios setup utility for hard drive setup/format. If there is the option, will should also have ability to scan & mark disk surface defects. 3rd party software like spinrite or drivepro will also do this for you. Richard Quilhot, C.N.A. [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- Now, now, don't laugh too loud. I was given an old 286 with a 40 mb Hard Drive. <snip> I can boot to the C: drive and see the directory (dir/w) without a problem. I can run other programs that are on the hard drive and in other directories. <snip> However, if I change to the "windows" directory (win 3.1) and then try to view the directory the following errror message pops up. "general failure reading drive C: abort, retry, fail?" This error message pops up every time in the "WINDOWS" directory only. Any ideas? <snip> Any help is sincerely appreciated. Dave Thuillier Chief scripter & Master of the arcane web at Dreamer's Den Game Shoppe - Hillsboro, New Hampshire http://www.dreamersden.com mailto:[log in to unmask] The PCBUILD web site always needs good submissions. If you would like to contribute to the website, send any hardware tech tips or hardware reviews to: [log in to unmask]