Saving to 3.5 diskettes

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jeff Malka
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J

Jeff Malka

I was told that writing a Word file to a diskette can be a cause of file
corruption. Is that true? Why?

My wife uses Word 97 and uses Word to save to diskettes as backups for some
of her Word files.

--

Jeff McPherson
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG
 
I was told that writing a Word file to a diskette can be a cause of file
corruption. Is that true? Why?
Click to expand...

Word creates all its temporary working files on the same drive as the open
document. If a FDD runs out of space or the user removes the disk then it
recovers very inelegantly (which means corrupting the document and maybe
corrupting Windows). This is a long-standing, errm, undocumented feature,
and has never been addressed by MS.

It is, of course, fine to edit a document on a big and stable drive (like a
HDD) and copy the file on and off a FDD.

Hope that helps


Tim F
 
Jeff said:
I was told that writing a Word file to a diskette can be a cause of
file corruption. Is that true? Why?

My wife uses Word 97 and uses Word to save to diskettes as backups
for some of her Word files.
Click to expand...

Hi, Jeff,

Yes, it's true, if you're saving directly from Word to the floppy. However,
it's safe to copy the file from the hard drive to the floppy by using
Explorer *after* you close Word; this is a recommended method for backing up
(although for size and speed I'd prefer something like CD-RW or DVD-RW).

Word uses lots of temporary files (see
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=211632 for details). If the floppy isn't
big enough to hold the document plus all the temp files, Bad Things (TM) can
happen.

There's also a chance that you can forget you have the document open in Word
and remove the disk from the drive. That will usually trash the file. This
is a danger for any kind of removable drive, even some (e.g., Zip drive)
that are otherwise safe.
 
Jay;

Is the emphasised part about copying it after closing Word really
important or did you mean after closing the document?
 
Hi, Rob,

It probably isn't mandatory, but I think it's safer. Closing Word
makes sure all the temp files associated with the document are closed.
It also ensures you don't have another window in Word pointing at the
same document but hidden behind another document, or other possible
(if improbable) scenarios.
 
This is true for sure! In my early years on a PC, I was typing some words
into a music orchestration I was just finishing up and trying the download
it to my Zip Drive and wham....suddenly, all my Word documents and my entire
music library was "cross-linked" and in most cases I could not open the
files in either program until I dumped all the corrupt files and started
over (I lost about 6 months worth of hard work). One or two files did open,
but all you saw was phrases and notes all mixed up together in both
programs. It was a hell of a mess. That was about 9 years ago. Since that
time I've only had 1 corrupt floppy that failed to open. As Jay says of
course the best way to save Word files is from Windows Explorer using a
quality CD-RW, or even a data DVD. Of course my problem was with a Iomega
Zip Drive which basically uses the same principle as the floppy I believe.

Just thought I'd share that painful experience with those who might be
tempted to learn the hard way as I did.
 
Thanks.

--

Jeff McPherson
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG
 
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