Your disk could be failing. The mtbf for most hard disks is 5 years but I.B.M. hard disks have an mtbf of 15 years. Try buying an IBM hard disk and you'll notice that fact reflected in the price tag if purchased new. If your computer has been sounding like a loud ticking clock lately that's a sign of hard disk failure. I've had this Dell long enough to have to replace the hard disk and that's what happened over here before the drive died. Fortunately, much more capacity is available for about the same amount of money than was the case a few years ago. The 20GB disk in the Dell installed in 1999 died earlier in 2003 just after the warranty ran out on the machine. So now for a few extra dollars I have a drive with 6 tunes the capacity of the original purchased from a local vendor.
