Re: Media descriptor byte error

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#3071

From: engelbert.jgm.torremans
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 12:17

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In article <1gnh9dINNpq3@crcnis1.unl.edu> hide@unlinfo.unl.edu (harry ide) writes:
>Two people in my department have had problems with floppy disks 
>intermittently for the last year or two. When I run Norton Disk Doctor
>on them, it says the media descriptor byte is invalid, and the FATs 
>are messed up (cross-linked, etc.). It's not (as far as I can tell) a 
>formatting problem; these disks were formatted in the same way as many
>others. (One good result: I think this has finally convinced them to 
>keep backups!) The two people this happens to are also the only two 
>people who regularly use both home computers and work computers. They 
>primarily use word processors; one uses WordPerfect and the other used
>to use wordcraft and now uses wp and has had problems with files in 
>both. Any ideas on what's going wrong?
>
>--
>Harry A. Ide                      |  `It's better to play dice with  
>(Dad to Andrew, born 4.iv.1991)   |  children than to play politics 
>                                  |  with you.' (Heraclitus)

I don't think it has something to do with the diskettes but it more
likely caused by WP. I have had the same problem long time ago. The
cause appeared to be that WP did not recognize that the diskettes
were changed. Either the diskette changeline is not operating
correctly, the diskdrive diskchange mechanism is not working 
correctly or WP does not handle the diskette correctly. 

This error causes WP to overwrite the diskette FAT with the 
contents of the FAT of the previous diskette to which the 
information of the new file is added. The result is a FAT that
is not related to the current diskette contents.

You can avoid this problem by letting wordperfect reread the diskette
before writing to it (F5) or make sure that the diskette changeline
is working again. However 360k floppy's don't have changeline support
and not all of 720k 3,5" diskettte drives have changeline support.

Engelbert Torremans
AT&T-NS-NL
Huizen
The Netherlands

Email: etorrem@cbnewsj.att.com / etorrem@hvlpa.att.com

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!linac!att!cbnewsk!cbnewsj!etorrem
From: etorrem@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (engelbert.jgm.torremans)
Subject: Re: Media descriptor byte error
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 12:17:33 GMT
Message-ID: <1992Dec17.121733.17698@cbnewsj.cb.att.com>
References: <1gnh9dINNpq3@crcnis1.unl.edu>
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