Window 95 uses disk caching as a built-in feature. Therefore, when you save
any file the file is written to the disk cache and not to the disk drive.
It is then written out to the disk later.  The reason for this is that the
disk cache has an access speed of approximately, 0.00000070 seconds, while
the disk drive has an access speed of 0.008 seconds.  Thus improving
performance, but causing users to think that their files have been saved
when they are not completely saved.  Shut-down forces the disk cache to
finish writing the files to the disk.

If you press the reset button or the power switch without going through a
proper shut-down, some of you data may still be in the disk cache and not
on the disk,  thus causing file corruption.

I run compter labs with over 50 computers, and they regularly get shut off
improperly,  those then boot-up into safe mode, and have no network
connections,  they shut -down properly and boot properly.

So far since September 1996, I have had to reinstall Windows on 5 machines,
bcause somehow, the C:\windows directory disappeared.  I think this may
have more to do with student error than with shut-down errors.


At 01:02 AM 2/27/98 -0500, you wrote:
>i know i mentioned this several months ago, but perhaps with more members on
>the list more insight can be provided.  when i spoke with ibm tech support
>over the summer, they told me that "improperly shutting down" the computer,
>or hitting the power or reset button before quitting windows, approximately
>ten times will result in corrupted files and the only thing to do at that
>point would be to completely re-install windows.  this seems logical since,
>in the newer versions of win95, microsoft has incorporated scandisk for
>whenever this scenario occurs, but still, ibm never gave me a
>straight-forward answer for why it's bad.  does this hold any truth to it,
>and if so, why?
>
>mark simmons

Roy G. Schriftman, MS-Mathematics, MBA-Finance
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