Computer Companies Sued

Wed., Nov. 3, 1999

From Staff

Fresh from winning a huge settlement with Toshiba Corp., lawyers have sued four other personal-computer makers, alleging that their products have defective floppy-disk drives.

One of the manufacturers, Compaq Computer Corp of Houston, said it doesn’t intend to settle and vowed to “vigorously” defend itself.

Three California-based companies also were named in the four separate lawsuits. They are Hewlett-Packard Inc. of Palo Alto, Packard Bell NEC Inc. of Sacramento and eMachines Inc. of Irvine.

The lawsuits allege that the manufacturers knowingly sold PCs equipped with floppy-disk drives that can corrupt or destroy user data. Similar claims about Toshiba’s laptop computers resulted in a preliminary settlement Friday for about $1 billion.

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Computer Companies Sued

Jesse Tinsley

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