Philip and John, Thank you both for your advice. I tried what you both suggested and the problem still occurred just as randomly as before. As it turned out, I installed 10.4.6 and the problem no longer occurs. I did peeked into the invisible files at the root of the hard drive after the update and did not see anything like I saw when 10..4.5 was installed. However, as nothing is broke, will not pursue. Thanks again for your help. Lee