Earl Truss wrote:

> It reads the data from your disk, writes it to another
> area of the disk and THEN, once the data is safely transferred, the FAT is
> changed to remove the data from the old position.  There is no removal of
> data from one part of the disk while it is not stored in another part.  If
> a power failure or other hangup occurs at any point, the FAT will always
> point to valid data - either the original data or where the data has been
> moved.

I have experienced defrag problem (lost system file) even there was no power
problem. When a power failure happen during defrag, there is nearly 100%
chance that you will see data lost and other problems. Don't believe me? get a
easy test, close all programs, start defrag, when it's going half way, turn
off the power, then see what's happen. The easiest way to understand the
problem (in the way as you described), is no matter how it works, there must
be a time that data has been changed in FAT, if the power is off during this
time (which very much like to happen during power failure), there is no way to
tell where the data located (which result at least data lost and space waste).
If this happened to important system file, it is doom for the system. I think
we all know what if the FAT is damaged.

> Of course, for inexperienced users, this should make other more safe
> alternatives more attractive.  Can we agree on this?

Nobody disagree with you at this point. But can you say xcopy is "unsafe to
all" for this?

J Qian

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