A You may need to upgrade your BIOS. Contact your system or BIOS manufacturer to see if an upgrade is available. If your PC was made after 1994, it most likely has a flash BIOS, which can be updated with a free download from the Web.

If no BIOS upgrade is available, you'll probably still be safe as long as you're not running a network or some obscure version of Unix. But you should enter the new century carefully. First, make sure you have a bootable floppy before the end of the year. Insert a floppy disk ù one that's blank or has no valuable data ù into the A: drive, double-click My Computer, right-click the A: drive icon and select Format. Check Copy system files and click Start. Store this disk in a safe place.

Come New Year's Eve, make sure your computer is off (hey, it will be a Friday night anyway). Before you turn it on for the first time in the new year, pop in that floppy. At the DOS prompt, type date. If the year isn't 2000, enter the correct date and press <Enter>. When the DOS prompt returns, turn off the computer.

After a few minutes, turn it back on. Chances are you'll get the right date and will continue to do so. If not, you can always reset the date after booting. But you may want to limit this computer to uses in which an accurate date is not vital ù for example, word processing, games and image editing.