Y2K may not be the biggest computer problem of the millennium

There’s been so much hype and warning, many computer experts believe there won’t be much effect at all by the Y-2-K bug. Still, the chief of the Central Iowa Computer Users Group fears there WILL still be trouble, but not due to the date change on January first. He says the bigger problem comes on January 3rd when people turn on their computer and find the hard drive has died from old age.Dan Buda says most computers aren’t designed to be left running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for years on end. He says people who shut their systems down this weekend may find a real surprise when they try to boot them back up on Monday.Buda strongly recommends people do complete back-ups of any of their important data. He says perhaps eight percent of computers that’re running all the time may crash once shut down and the data will be lost. Buda says there’s no way to jump-start a hard drive that’s died.A technology consulting firm estimates only ten percent of all Y-2-K failures will happen in the first two weeks of January. Other glitches may linger for months and even into 2001 and beyond before they cause trouble.