"Coho, it just seems strange that both of your computers would have this problem at the same time, and since the CDs work ok it just seems to point to the DVDs as the problem. I have found that some of the blank cheaper brands of DVDs do seem to have a higher failure rate when they get older. I no longer store anything that I want to keep only on DVDs, but make sure I have copies on external hard drives." As do I. I would much rather send a DVD to Alaska family than my external drve. Guess will reinstall Windows in about 2 weeks unless someone comes up with a better way. Thanks

Called Tech Support and they had me do a system recovery from the hard drive. After I did that, it worked ok for a couple days and started giving problems again. I called TS again and was told there was obviously a problem with the OS. They promptly sent me a System Recovery DVD. I inserted the DVD and followed instructions. Although I was told that it would take about 25 min to do the recovery- 2 hour later I had to again call TS. The PC was in a loop- it keep giving the message to wait while it loaded the software-then it would restart and do the same thing again. But again the TS was very prompt in giving me instructions out of my loop and back to recovery. I now have the PC restored to original. Have restarted windows twice and all seems well. I guess time will tell. Though it is pretty frustrating to spend more time working on the notebook PC than playing (Or using)it, I will say that the TS was really great. I'm am really hoping that is fixed now, though. Thanks for all the input. Donna

Do you know the name of the file that is missing? Are you sure that is the only one? Did you get more than one recovery CD when you bought the computer? Perhaps there is a second CD with those needed files and you are trying the wrong CD. During start up with the CD in the drawer does the CD player activity light appear for quite a while suggesting the CD is being read? You might consider putting the CD in the computer you are using, stop the auto start as it occurs, then use Windows Explorer to verify you have the right CD. When you entered the BIOS you tried to change the sequence to CD then hard drive then floppy. Did you hit F10 to save and exit? If not then were you prompted to save the changes and did you follow along? Seems like you may have exited without saving the changes.

If it's really old, the laptop probably has little value. If you want to make sure the hard drive doesn't contain personal info, remove it and smash it with a hammer. To get at the hard drive you usually just turn the laptop over and remove a couple of screws that cover the hard drive access panel.