mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) (02/06/91)
The following happened to me yesterday: The computer is a Dell 310 with 2 megabytes of memory and a 80 megabyte hard drive (their "type 1"). Symptom: if you copy a file from a floppy or the hard disk to the hard disk (with a different name or directory) the copied file is total garbage, and the wrong size to boot. Sometimes after a few tries of doing this some of these files disappear from the directory. Writing to the floppy works fine. Attempt to fix problem. We back up the hard disk to floppies. Then I try "format e:". It completes in a minute or two (e: is some 20 megabytes). Isn't this too fast?? The data on e: is still there. Isn't "format" supposed to destroy data? I forget to test for the problem. Then I delete all of Microsoft Windows 386 2.11 from e:. Test for the problem. FIXED. Completely fixed. Utterly fixed. Anybody out there have an explanation??? Doug McDonald