Thank you very much for your thorough reply, so much to learn. In any case, will the disk remain usable as normal or will it deteriorate faster than normal or perform at a lower speed? When it comes to it, I prefer to just get another one in order to have peace of mind, and keep this one as a backup one for some basic stuff (i.e. not installing a full catalog of Win98 era stuff for days only to be forced to start all over again....yet again!)