My computer rebooted itself in the middle of the day, then after running for a long time came up with the message: Error reading C, Abort, Cancel, Retry. This is the second time this has happened in 3-4 months. Last time, I booted up from A:, and after much fiddling, C finally can be read. Then it said it was missing a file and Windows cannot be started. I found the file from another computer, copied it over, and Windows can be started. I just wonder why this is happening again? What could be wrong with the computer? The hard drive is a new 20GB one, even though the computer is rather old. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Sounds somewhat similiar! It could be a software problem in the drive but before check something else. As you seem to have a very old system check your bios if the detected informations about the drive are really correct. Also check your bios version if it really supports a 20 GB drive. Maybe there is a bios update for bigger drives. In every case download the diagnostic tool from your manufacturer and run it on the drive to find if there are any errors. !!! If possible make a backup before, just in case !!! Now to what sounds so similiar: I just had to send my 60 GB IBM drive back for replacement (it already was the replacement of another drive!). Suddenly it couldn't be detected from my bios. I downloaded the diagnostic tool from hitachi (now makes all the harddrive stuff for IBM!) and it detected bad clusters. It offered me to repair the clusters or to reformat the whloe drive. With a backup on another drive I just reformated and it worked again. Now, after about 3 months the same thing happened again and I tried to repair the clusters which gave me the message "bad drive" and some eror messages. Again I tried the reformat and it worked again. I called the hotline, gave them the errors from the cluster repair and was told to send it back. They even send the parcel service to my house on their own costs to get it!