I've always believed in SONY products. I bought their first Walkman, their first BetaVTR, their first DAT machine, their first Trinitron TV, even their first portable DAT machine, their first PCV150 computer.....I WAS a big believer in SONY. The message said something about an errror due to a corrupted file called .\iosubsys. I had never seen or heard of that file before. I rebooted several times, even getting to the safe mode in Windows and I tried to go onto the Internet to the SONY site thinking I could find the problem there. Since I was in safe mode, the computer would not allow me to log on to the net. All of that changed last Friday, March 26, 1999. I was in the process of filling out a very important form when my SONY PCV 150 froze up. I rebooted as usual. All of a sudden an error message jumped up that I had never seen before. In fact, I had never had any problem with my SONY computer. I called the SONY numbers at 1-888-476-6972 and 1-800-222-7669 only to find the longest. most useless voice mail system I had ever encountered. After several minutes of pushing numbers and hearing more instructions, I finally got through to a SONY tele-tech named Anthony (C06Q). He gave me an "Event" #: E04535221. He immediately verified that I was a registered SONY user and asked me what the problem was. I read him the error message right off the screen. He then informed me that he could fix the problem but it would cost me $19.95. I told him that I had never called SONY tech support before and he asked for a credit card number. I informed him that I do not use credit cards for I do not believe in paying high interest for already high priced items. It's senseless. I told him I would be glad to send a check or money order. He asked me to get a credit card from my wife and give him the number. I declined for I do not mix my business with my wife's credit cards. They are for emergencies only. It's just that simple. I informed him I had an ATM card and asked it that would work. I told him how important it was that I get the forms filled in for they pertained to a very important personal health problem concerning my daughter. The SONY tech punched my ATM number and name into their system and informed me that it worked. I wonder why the tech was so uninformed that he did not know that their system takes ATM numbers. I wondered why he hassled me about a credit card number when he didn't even need one. He then had me reboot my computer and told me to go to a c prompt and type in ren smartdrv.exe smartdrv.old. That was the fix for the corrupted SONY file. The whole process took less than 5 seconds to tell me the line. Now, I'm not a computer novice by any means. All the man had to do is tell me just rename your smartdrv.exe to .old. It would have taken him 5 seconds and saved a lot of time and phone costs to SONY. Instead he fleeced me for $20. I don't use SONY products anymore. I don't like getting ripped off. I sold the Walkman and my SONY DATS the day after the ripoff. My SONY PCV 150 is for sale now to the highest bidder and I may give it away for I don't ever want another SONY product in my home or business and I won't do business with anyone who uses SONY. And the worst part, for SONY, their little $20 ripoff cost them about $5,000 for I was planning on purchasing a brand new SONY computer with ALL the trimmings including the digital cameras, all that jazz. I cancelled the order last Friday afternoon. So, you sorry bastards at SONY, always remember one thing: your greed to rip me off for $20 cost you $5,000 and you will never hear the end of it as long as I live on this earth.