Problem accessing files with non-English filenames

[Guest]

A friend of mine burned a CD with many files for backup purposes. Some of them had filenames that contained non-English letters. When I browse the CD, these letters appear now as question marks (in the filename), and every attempt to access or copy these specific files fails

Some of the error messages I get
"Cannot copy ????: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.
"E:\???? could not be found. Check the spelling of the file name, and verify that the file location is correct.
"The document name or path is not valid.

Any help to rescue these files will be appreciated
Thanks

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Bud.

One way is to open a "DOS" window and use the old faithful DIR command with
the /x switch to show the Short Filenames (also known as 8.3 filenames) in a
column before the LFNs. Even short filenames have to have 8.3 filenames if
any invalid characters are included in the name. By "invalid", I mean a
character that is not allowed in an MS-DOS filename, which could include
such "not non-English" characters as a space or comma or other punctuation.
It appears that your problem may be in the LFN of the folder (directory),
rather than the file, but dir /x should work on either of them.

At least, this trick works for deleting such files by using del <SFN>. I'm
not sure about Copying them, since their invalid filenames would, perhaps,
be copied, too, leaving you with the same problem in a new location. And I
don't know if you could Rename them using this trick. Why don't you try it
and see what you learn. Then you can post back and tell us. As we often
say, in a newsgroup, we all learn from each other. Maybe it's your turn to
teach the rest of us about this situation. ;^}

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP

A friend of mine burned a CD with many files for backup purposes. Some of

them had filenames that contained non-English letters. When I browse the CD,
these letters appear now as question marks (in the filename), and every
attempt to access or copy these specific files fails.

Some of the error messages I get:
"Cannot copy ????: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect."
"E:\???? could not be found. Check the spelling of the file name, and

verify that the file location is correct."

 

[Guest]

Thank you

OK - I tried the dir/x trick. The files do get weird 8.3 names (full of underscores etc.)
However, when I try to copy them using these names - it still fails

D:\>COPY _____~25.DOC C
The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect
0 file(s) copied

Deleting is not relevant, since it's a read-only CD (and I don't wish to delete them anyway)

Thus we all learn, but the files are still not accessible :-(

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Bud.

Sorry that doesn't work. I'm not familiar with non-English versions of
Windows. Perhaps the names use Unicode, which uses two bytes to represent
each character. (I'm shooting in the dark now, about things I've heard
others talk about but haven't really had to deal with, myself.) Do you know
which language it is? And which version of Windows created the CD? If you
post that information here, somebody probably will know how to handle it.
These newsgroups are worldwide, you know.

For those files with .doc extensions, can you open Word, browse to that
directory and load the file? Then you should be able to Save As with a new
filename of your choosing.

I'm fresh out of ideas. I hope someone else can jump in here. Good luck,
Bud!

RC

 

[Guest]

Hi and thanks again

The answers to the questions are
- The CD was made on a Windows 2000 Professional system
- I'm trying to read the CD on a Windows 2000 Professional system
- Both the old system and the new system had/has standard Hebrew support
- The problematic filenames were in Hebrew
- Word cannot open the files. Nothing seems to be able to. Even hex-edit and VB can't
- All the files that did not contain Hebrew letters (in their filenames) are quite okay.