At 08:45 PM 6/5/99 -0400, you wrote:
>If you have a power failure/fluctuation which causes you computer to
>freeze, reboot, etc. you have nearly 100% guaranteed lost data since
>when defragging, the program removes data from one area, saves it in
>volatile RAM and then copies it to another area of the hard drive.
>Until all the info in the RAM is copied to the hard disk, it is only in
>RAM which lost forever if the puter freezes and or reboots. Lost data

The above scenario is exactly why a defrag program does NOT work as you
have described.  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.  If a defrag program actually worked as you have described, the
window during which the disk could be damaged would be much too large and
it would be too unsafe to use.

>After several 100 xcopies, I have never had a problem except as
>mentioned with a bat file. Remember, just because you have truncated
>pointers (to include shortcuts), does not mean you will have a problem,
>only if the xcopy changes it which it may not depending on the order of
>copy.
>
Of course.  This is exactly the point.  It may be fine for you or someone
who understands the problem to use XCOPY and correct any problems
afterwards.  It is another thing to recommend this method to an
inexperienced user who will not recognize the problem or know how to
correct it without mentioning the possibility of the problem happening.  I
think that is all that anyone here is saying.  We are not saying that this
problem makes this method unsafe in all circumstances and that you WILL
have problems, only that the instructions must include the warning of the
possibility of problems, how to recognize the problem and how to correct
it.  Of course, for inexperienced users, this should make other more safe
alternatives more attractive.  Can we agree on this?

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