@anotherfluke: Thanks again for your help with my friend's gamecube....he should be getting it back soon. Meanwhile, seeing as how you work for Nintendo, I wondered if you could answer a question for me. I recently read this somewhere (don't remember where), and I cut and pasted it for future reference.

1 in 10,000 GameCubes shipped before Metroid Prime was released have a processor bug that will cause the game to fail. The problem has been fixed in later PowerPC chips

Three questions:
a) Is it true that Metroid Prime is causing this error?
b) If so, is it really only one in 10,000 systems?
c) What steps, if any, can I take to prevent this from happening when I buy Metroid Prime this coming week?

Thanks in advance, Fluke.