Help!!! Apple ][e

[tommage@aol.com (TomMage)]

Hello, I'm kind of a newbie to the ][e and have a problem?? Got a ][e, ALL my
disks used to just boot up automatically when I turned on the computer,
including games, copy II + etc. Then all of a sudden, many stopped booting by
themselves, including some of the utilities, the drive would either grind a bit
or I would get a message "can't load prodos". Never used to have to load a DOS
disk first, what happened?? Once I got a message "retep" or something, and it
worked ok again for a while, but now the same problem again. Went and checked
another ][e at my friend's house and I get the same "error". I'm stumped, just
bought this to play some of the great old RPGs like Ultima and Wizardry etc. In
fact I'm willing to buy old originals of the Ultima and Infocom games if anyone
has some to sell. Can anyone tell me what is "wrong" with my ][e or what I need
to do to be able to play these games and use these utilities again?? Some of
the games still boot ok, and I know the others are not bad, they were all
working the day I started getting this message.

Thank you,
Tom