Customer brought in a BKS630 bookshelf pc circa 2001. A Google search points to a very nice BIOS and driver site by EliteGroup.

Ran an exhaustive memtest - all ok. Ran an exhaustive Spinrite test - bad sectors at the start of drive, not recoverable. Had customer get an 80 GB hard drive from DXM Computer in Warwick RI (401) 826-1998. Max - Massisimo (sp?) D'ellollio (sp?) who owns DXM is a great guy who I have known for 10 plus years. Doesn't do much mail order but if you are in the area and you are not a PITA, you will appreciate the service.

The machine had a Win2k pro tag on the side. I advised going to XP Home (cheaper - and its a home user with no network domain login needed) based on the thought that plugging in digital cameras, USB sticks and whatnot in the future would be simpler and (unfortunately) better supported.

First glitch I hit was that it didn't boot from CD - kept trying to do a network boot even tho I had disabled all but CD booting. Finally I found that the IDE cable came off the CD after reassembly - duh.

So it booted into the XP setup CD but then appeared to hang. Figuring it could be detecting - I took a nap. No go. And numlock light wouldn't go on and off either. Rebooted - hung at same point. Back to Google - MS support has a topic on this - basic advice is to disable or remove hardware that XP may be having trouble finding a driver for - they claim that it isn't really hanging but could take 30 minutes to detect.

I think it was hung tho - because ctrl-alt-del would not reboot and that was the test MS said would tell if it was probably hung or not.

In CMOS setup, I disabled nearly everything on the Integrated Peripherals page - including USB support, parallel port, modem, sound etc.

Setup is running fine now, working its way through another 35 minutes of assurances from MS of how much better my computing experience will be now... I am hoping that if/when I re-enable the ports etc - XP will gallantly find or let me point to the drivers for them.

Drive that failed was a Samsung SpinPoint SV2001H 20GB with a Label ID of LRA08JBA and S/N 0399J1FRA30116 space... V4020. Personally I'd be concerned about how hot modern drives seem to run. My own little Syntax box I got for easier travelling runs with no cover on it to enhance cooling.

Although this hard drive failure is within my guesstimate of 3 to 5 years hard drive life range - I still wonder if it would have lasted longer if it was kept cooler.