[WinMac] Re: NT and losing files - heaps of questions!

Daniel L. Schwartz(expresso[at]snip.net)
Fri, 28 May 1999 09:02:46 -0500

        Dear Richard:

        1) I'm assuming your partitions are NTFS: If not, then use the CONVERT
command from an MS/DOS prompt. Native Transactional File System (NTFS) is
worth the price of NT all by itself;

        2) Does your office have power dips? A blink of the lights
can play havoc
with disk reads & writes; and since 3 of these machines are exhibiting the
same symptoms I would recommend getting Uninterruptible power supplies
(UPS'). Bigger units, about 500VA in size, can easily run 2 CPU's as long
as you don't also try to run the power hungry monitors;

        3) Set the paging file to the same minimum & maximum size, then go to
<http://www.sysinternals.com> and get the pagefile defragging utility;

        4) If you can, try to reboot the machines about once per
week, so you can
run chkdsk on the NTFS volumes: My Computer -> Right click on volume ->
Properties -> Tools tab -> Error Checking -> Check Now -> yes to
"Automatically Fix File System Errors," no to "Scan for and attempt
recovery of bad sectors" -> Start -> Yes to Dialog Box -> OK (on Properties
sheet). Repeat for each NTFS volume, then reboot.

        NOTE: I usually check for bad blocks about every 4-12 weeks
or so - Closer
to 4 weeks with hot &/or older drives, closer to 12 weeks with newer &/or
cooler running drives.

        DANGER: Do *NOT* run CHKDSK /F from a command line: If you convert lost
clusters to free files on an NTFS volume with Mac files, you're REALLY
hosed - Reformat & restore from tape.

        I'm off to Indy for the 500!

        Cheers!
        Dan

At 12:26 AM 5/28/99 -0500, Richard Dugan <r.dugan@vcc.org.nz> wrote:
>
>
>This question has nothing to do about Mac's, but as a Mac user trying to
>solve Win NT problems I am way stuck!
>
>I recently received 7 new IBM pentiums, preinstalled with NT w/s SP3. I
>created profiles so different users could log in etc. However, I have now
>discovered after about 3 weeks of use, that 3 of the 7 machines (so far)
>are having trouble retaining files in each users profile e.g. a user saves
>a Word file into their personal folder and the next time they log in, their
>personal folder is empty! I have tried logging in as Administrator and
>still can't see the files in the WINNT40\PROFILES directory. Using the
>Find command has come up empty. I have noticed that a whole bunch of files
>are getting dumped into the WINNT40 folder with .acl and .wab extension and
>there appear to be files named as that of the profile name but these cannot
>be opened.
>
>Is the registry shot and if so is it best to reinstall NT or can I just
>create new user profiles? Should I reformat the drives and start from
>scratch or is it ok to reinstall NT on top of the old version? Why should
>this happen on so many machines so soon after un-boxing them? Is there any
>way I can get these missing files back - as one person had just spent the
>last week moving all her Mac files onto this machine, converting file
>formats at the same time (no backup of NT stuff once this had been done of
>course).
>
>
>Many thanks
>
>
>
>Richard Dugan

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