Silke that's about my experience with XP, home edition. Haven't lost the HD yet, but nothing will run on it with any amount of reliability. I'm just accepting that if I want reliability, I have to give up some things that I don't use often anyhow. Of my seven boxes, (3 older Macs and 4 Intel based) two are on linux now, but the progs I use most often are linux native anyhow. The box on line will probably stay windoze 98, but there's nothing else in it's pitifully small (micro$oft standards) HD. If I have to reformat and reload windoze, not a biggie, nothing lost.