Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!psueea!parsely!bucket!leonard
From: leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Stumpers
Message-ID: <1901@bucket.UUCP>
Date: 7 Jan 90 08:49:07 GMT
References: <21990002@hpvcfs1.HP.COM>
Organization: Rick's Home-Grown UNIX; Portland, OR.
Lines: 23

rexw@hpvcfs1.HP.COM (Rex Wickenkamp) writes:

>2)  I have always wondered why CHKDSK, when used with the /F parameter,
>    creates FILE0000.CHK files in the root directory.  Can anyone give me
>    a good explanation of this?

It made them because you just *told* it to! Among other things, CHKDSK
checks for "lost clusters". These are clusters or chains of clusters
that are marked as "in use" in the FAT, but are not assigned to any
entries in any directory. 

When it finds such clusters it asks "Convert lost clusters to files?"
If you are running chkdsk without the /F parameter it will ignore your
response as it *can't* do anything about them. If you did specify /F
and answer No, it will mark the lost clusters as unused thus freeing
up the space. If you answer Yes, it will convert each chain of clusters
into a FILExxxx.CHK file in the root directory. In theory, this gives
you a chance to recover the data. In practice it isn't much help.
-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools.
Let's start with typewriters." -- Solomon Short