Files overwritten

[laldfordo]

This is not specific to Trainz but I am hoping one of the computer-expert forum members can help.

I have four partitions, two where the OS is XP-Pro, two where the OS is DOS 6.22. I ran chkdsk on one of the DOS partitions and found cross linking - ie two files on the same sector. The culprit seems to be System Restore, which has put files there and overwritten what I had. One instance is sad as I have lost hours of work on a program I had written, and had no copy.

For the time being I've turned off System Restore but does anyone know what has been happening and how to prevent it?

 

[collinsl]

System restore monitors all partitions and creates system restore points periodically.

In your case, what you can do is open the system restore wizard, and disable it on the DOS drives. This will stop it from writing to these drives.

P.S. This post may have been better off in the parts & labour forum.

HTH,

 

[laldfordo]

Thanks Lloyd. I found I could selectively disable System Restore so have done that. Bit fearful the bug may have arrived with a recent XP update so anxiously watching my files on the XP partitions in case one gets overwritten.

We'd better stop this thread as it shouldn't be in Trainz at all.

 

[stagecoach]

Thought the restore only did the system registry. It does not as far as i know delete files or restore files. I installed a programme after which i did a restore to a point before it was installed and it failed to show but the files and folder are still in the correct place on the HD, only the registry parts have gone so the computer system did not know the folder existed.

 

[collinsl]

Thought the restore only did the system registry. It does not as far as i know delete files or restore files. I installed a programme after which i did a restore to a point before it was installed and it failed to show but the files and folder are still in the correct place on the HD, only the registry parts have gone so the computer system did not know the folder existed.

True, HOWEVER, I believe that the problem was that system restore backed up the registry data for that drive, which overwrote some other files that it perhaps couldn't see or understand, as I don't believe that System restore can read DOS files (or something:hehe.

 

[laldfordo]

Certainly on the DOS partition System Restore creates a directory, subdirectories and files. The FAT (file allocation table) showed two files in the same place on the partition, but really there was only one, namely the one created by Restore.

 

[collinsl]

Were they two of the same file?
Can you recover the old one using some recovery tool?
If you need one, let me know.

 

[laldfordo]

Hi Lloyd (& others)

No, there were two different files in the same place. Obviously that can't be, but there were two pointers to that sector in the hard disc. And that had happened several times over. Each error was called crosslinking by chkdsk.

I know System Restore restores the registry to where you had it at the restore point but it surely has to create a data file for each restore point so the computer knows what to restore the registry to.

All of these crosslinked sectors involve a System Restore file (and some other file) and in all of them the 0s and 1s that are there are those of the System Restore file, not of the file that was previously there. Given that, I didn't think that the original file would be recoverable, even with a powerful recovery program. But thank you for the offer.

 

[collinsl]

I was under the impression that CHKDSK can be made to fix crosslinks. I may be wrong, but this may work.

P.S. Sorry for the late reply.