AIL0@LEHIGH.BITNET (Prof Arthur I. Larky) (09/02/89)
> I 'm a college student studying physics. Now I have discovered a > suspicious thing about MS-DOS's behavior in my sense. When I copy some > files to a floppy but I misput a write protected diskette, I find the > error massage "retry, ...". At this time, if I answer "r" to the > massage and puting a non-protected diskette, then the FAT and > DIRECTORY of the protected diskette is transfered to the second non > protected diskette(and the files that I copied to). Is this a DOS's > bug or a virus? It's a "feature" of MSDOS - when you attempt to write on a floppy, MSDOS reads the FAT and Directory and re-writes it when you are done. If you swap floppies, you get the old information on the new disk. The rule is: NEVER NEVER replace a floppy with another in the middle of a write or a write protect error. Pick the Abort option, not the Retry option; then start the process all over. Anyway, it's not a virus, it's just Bill Gates getting even with the world for making him a billionaire. Art Larky CSEE Dept Lehigh University