On Mon, 25 Oct 2010, Fred James wrote: > Have you tried (as root), chmod? Perhaps 'chmod 666 ask.c' Fred, Yes: [root at salmo ~]# chmod 666 ask.c chmod: cannot access `ask.c': No such file or directory I believe the mode 0000 makes it untouchable. I'll bet that's the mode of the other orphaned files, too. Must be the hard drive on its way out. Thanks, Rich