I am sure glad that I decided to upgrade my computer a year ago. My old 486 hard drive that I replaced with a Pentium I sold to a friend who needed an upgrade. Yesterday when he decided to install the 486 hard drive that I sold him, he called me and said the date read 1900....Now if I had not chosen to upgrade, I would be staring at a 1900 date and costly remediation. I had no idea at the time that the hard drive would do that or I would not have sold it to him. But I cannot see how this is not happening all over the place and just not being reported. Maybe FOF? Just thought it was interesting because he was a definite DGI and now he says that maybe I was right!

-- Diane (cptlauthor@aol.com), January 10, 2000

Answers

lady, a hard-drive doesn't have a date function. Are you sure you didn't sell the computer? to your friend. Besides, even on a 486, reading the date as 1900, you can set the date correctly each time you boot up by adding

date

to the autoexec.bat and there will be NO problems

-- Technician (me@hotmail.com), January 10, 2000.

Diane,

A hard drive has nothing to do with the date system in a PC. The date is controlled bye the BIOS. If his BIOS is non-compliant, it wouldn't matter who's hard drive he used. I was responsible for certifying many 486 class computers. Most of them were already compliant and those that weren't we were able to fix with a BIOS patch. If he goes to the manufacturer's web site, he can probably get and install a fix.

Jim

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), January 10, 2000.

I honestly don't care what date my computer dispalys so long as it doesn't crash. Also, because the MS word processor programs update a file date every time you call up the file whether you change it or not, the file date is completely useless in tracking changes! (Unlike Word Perfect, which would only change the date if the file was changed.) Another reason why MS is inferior. (I use it cause I have it.)

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), January 10, 2000.

Thank you both Technician and Jim for your input into this matter. I have forwarded your responses to my friend for his consideration. I feel real stupid now because you all know the extent of my computer knowledge! LOL I just turn it on and hope it works! Thanks for your input. It was just the 486 hard drive not the entire computer that he purchased from me. Thanks again for the input, Diane

-- Diane (cptlauthor@aol.com), January 10, 2000.

Mara,

What version of MS Word are you using? I have Word 97 and 2000 and neither of these changes the modified date if I just open and close a file without making any changes. I've been using Word since version 2.0 and I've never seen this behavior.

Jim

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), January 10, 2000.

Forum posters:

Please do not cheat anyone else out of their Y2K breakedowns. They predicted them, they waited for them, and they earned the right to have them.

-- ImSo (happy@prepped.com), January 10, 2000.

ImSo,

I don't think Diane posted with any thought of crowing about a Y2K failure. She had an honest concern that can be solved with some additional information. I'm certainly toward the "polly" (cripes, I hate that term) end of things but I'd like to see us all maintain a sense of civility here.

Jim

-- JJCooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), January 10, 2000.

I agree, she was just posting about a perceived Y2k problem. Sometimes, unfortunately, those of us with IT knowledge respond with more than a touch of arrogance to those who don't have an answer.

The very interesting thing about this post is that it shows how someone who doesn't understand hardware or software can be led to believe that almost anything is Y2K related. This is what got me so irked last year. I had people coming to me with all kinds of typical, pilot error computer problems and claiming it was Y2K related, because of what they read on some board like this. Or worse yet, that there would xxxxx error because of Y2K.

A lot of those people got bilked for repairs and preps that they never needed. That's what tweaks me the most about this whole thing.

-- H.H. (dontscrewme_2000@yahoo.com), January 10, 2000.

Nothing was done to y2k fix my 486 and it is working just fine. My husband spent hours downloading patches to our pentium (the one we use for the internet) and it works fine, too. In fact, I updated a spreadsheet on the 486 in excel and put in the date of 1/7/00 which read on the spreadsheet as 01/07/2000. I was certainly surprised that it worked so well - as I have been about all the other non problems. I was a GI for almost two years at 7-8 and still can't get over how almost everything worked just fine. I'm still struggling with my feelings over this whole thing. Thank God we all got thru this pretty well.

-- Gail (fialkow@erols.com), January 10, 2000.

Now I am sorry that I even posted! I have been in the school of "need to know" as far as computers are concerned. I learn something when I need it to run my business or whatever. I have read thousands of articles about Y2K in the past 2 years and have been visiting here for about a year. I did prepare and did what I thought I needed to do. Learning about bios and remediation was not one of the things that I had the time to learn. I left that to those who know those things. Sorry again at my ignorance amongst all you computer geniuses!

-- Diane (cptlauthor@aol.com), January 10, 2000.

Diane, Don't take the forum personally, and don't feel apologetic about posting. Think of (any) comment that is made, including the thread starter, as being generated from cyberspace. Responses are not to YOU--they are to the words on the screen.

And don't bother to learn about computers--the interface will eventually catch up to the user, just like cars. I have no idea what's under the hood of MY car--that's what the mechanic is for. And I DON'T care if he thinks I'm dumb not to know. I get to decide what I feel like learning. Most of the arguments on this forum are between people who do make a pretense of knowing, but on average it's just that--pretense. (Myself included, of course)

-- Imso (happy@prepped.com), January 10, 2000.

Good point about the car, Imso.

And just think, old mechanics have no idea what's under the hood these days either.

-- (just@n.observation), January 10, 2000.