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From: stevev@uoregon.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Lost clusters, chains, and files
Message-ID: <194@uoregon.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Jun-87 18:33:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: uoregon.194
Posted: Wed Jun 10 18:33:25 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jun-87 07:23:31 EDT
References: <1855@isis.UUCP>
Reply-To: stevev@drizzle.UUCP (Steve VanDevender)
Organization: University of Oregon, Computer Science, Eugene OR
Lines: 28

In article <1855@isis.UUCP> tkoppel@isis.UUCP (Ted Koppel) writes:
>Earlier this evening, when running a "chkdsk b:*.*", I got the
>wonderful and mysterious message:
>   1 lost cluster found in 1 chain -- 
>    Convert lost chains to files?
>
>What does this mean? The chkdsk went on to say that the disk itself
>had all sorts of file system errors .. Can one recover from this 
>"lost cluster condition" without reformatting the disk?

A file on a disk is essentially a chain of clusters, and a cluster is
the smallest unit of disk space that can be allocated to a file.
Sometimes a chain of clusters will get unhooked from a directory entry
(often if a file is opened, written to, but not closed properly, i. e.
the machine crashes before the file is closed).  When that happens the
clusters are still marked as allocated but don't correspond to any file
on the disk.  CHKDSK will find these lost chains and give you the option
turning them back into files that you can either delete or possibly
recover lost information from the file.  Recovered files are placed in
the root directory on the disk with names FILEnnnn.CHK where nnnn starts
with 0000.  You must run CHKDSK with the /F switch to have it recover
lost cluster chains.

-- 
Steve VanDevender	uoregon!drizzle!stevev	stevev@oregon1.BITNET
"Bipedalism--an unrecognized disease affecting over 99% of the population.
Symptoms include lack of traffic sense, slow rate of travel, and the
classic, easily recognized behavior known as walking."