hello, the machine is only 3 years old,yes i did destroy all the data on it after i formatted.i still have the larger drive but it won't read it. last night a neighbor gave me a windows 2000 disc and i formatted the drive again and it worked;it saw the full capacity of the drive and is ready to use, however when i try to bring the second drive with 225 + gigs of data on it it will not see it no matter how i switch things around bios won't read it, so i took it out, the drive i have working is set to master and is the only drive in the pc but bios says it is a secondary slave drive but it is on the primary ide channel and set to master!!everything in bios is set to auto detect drives,but as soon as i connect the other drive as a slave drive and reboot, the computer freezes and gets stuck on the post screen and hangs.funny thing is when i take that drive and put it in the hard drive enclosure that converts regular drives to use with usb and plug it into the computer i am on right now and reboot, windows comes up and says : found new hardware,mass storage usb device,your hardware is installed and ready to use,it even gives me a new drive letter,shows the drive as a western digital drive but... when i click on the drive letter it says please insert a disk into drive j....hmmm

I think getting a wii is a great idea! While she's tending 8 babies, she can plug in the wii and tell the six kids to bowl, hula hoop, or some sport. They need to keep busy! I can't imagine she's buying it for her own use, at least not daily. Unless she's super woman. It's going to be mega tough taking care of 8 babies but 8 toddlers plus six others would make me lose my mind. I hope she has some help. yea, I'm tired of hearing about it all too.

I'm biting the bullet and looking for a new receiver with at least six HDMI 'ports'. I don't think we will be 'streaming' anything unless the offerings improve for our 'demographic'. LOL Today AT&T emailed me, touting their "U-Verse" -- which sounds like it would replace the DirecTV HD-DVR they already provide us, bundled with landline and internet. The promo seems aimed at people who need 24/7 'connectivity' via hand helds...or music. I doubt they have any wider selection movies on offer than what I saw on Amazon and Netflix. Any DVD's we get from the library that are longer than a movie have two-week check-outs. We're in town a couple times a week anyway, so detouring a block to the library is easy. We still sometimes check out 'real' books, too. LOL

I don't doubt he could abuse drugs and never get caught. It happens. Some CPS workers are more liberal than others.. Some cops are more liberal than others... and same with family court Judges. We have a therapist that believes SD10 should be seeing her mom on supervised visits only because of emotional abuse, yet he is not willing to say so in court. He doesn't want to be involved in court proceedings. We had a Judge that heard testimony on BM bringing BF's to sleep with her in the same room she shared with her daughters.. and from what SD acted out with her barbie dolls (in sexual positions) and told us about what she saw... the court did not think that was enough to give BM less custody than DH. I have had cops tell me that CPS ruins families when I asked them to check the welfare of my 10mo old DGS. I have had CPS see the bruises on DGS and tell me that unless they see the mother high with the child, they can do nothing... babies get bruises. It is very difficult, not impossible depending on WHO the players are, to get supervised visitation or to take away a parent's visitation or rights altogether. You pretty much have to go back to court repeatedly, with the same Judge and prove these things are going on and hope that eventually the court will take your side. I have seen it go the other way... a parent bringing multiple actions to say things are going on, only to have the Judge admonish the parent for dragging the other parent back to court over and over. A good attorney is a must. There are attorneys that will take a case pro bono or at a reduced fee if they believe one side is at a disadvantage because of financial position and they believe it's in the best interest of the children to be with that parent. Men have Father's rights groups, Mothers have domestic violence & family services groups. One thing I have learned (and always work on practicing because it is HARD), is to let go. Many times, these battles are about control, power & let's not forget about MONEY, not about the kids. The more you battle in the name of the kids, the worse it gets. When it's not fun anymore (or when there is no 'rush' from the fight), the other side will eventually go away and leave you alone... if they are just in it for the battle. I stopped fighting when my son was 12... his dad vanished into the woodwork. I have never heard from him again. After my son turned 18, they have seen each other & spoken, but I have nothing to do with it. I removed myself from the situation. The more we ignore SD's mom, she has had less to do with us... she's still damaging her daughter, but there isn't a battle with us anymore. She still tries.. does things that if WE did them, she would go ballistic, but we shrug & say see ya next time... and go on our merry way. Now, I am working on doing the same with my DIL... as she calls me every name in the book... as she brings DGS back to me with red marks that 'could' be signs of abuse.. or everyday marks babies get.. and she likes to imply he hurt himself by telling me he tried to drown himself or he's depressed/bipolar. I have good reason to believe she is abusing him & she is mentally ill.. but it is still going to be an uphill battle to prove it in court & the last thing I am willing to do is allow myself to get sucked into a battle of wills with her. I document things. I don't confront her, she just denies it. I notify the proper authorities to document what I believe is going on... if they do nothing, at least it's documented. That's all you can do. He is their father and they know better than anyone what their father is about... the time will come when nobody can force them to go. Emotional abuse is horrible, I see it in my SD10 and she lives with us. Her mother makes it impossible for her to live a happy life here, all because she doesn't want to pay support. In time, she will decide for herself. We don't like to let her go because we know the things her mother puts in her head but we have to, it's the law.