Full Diskette On File Replace

On Tue, 5 Aug 2008 12:00:37 +0100, "Gordon"
<gordonbparker DeleteThis @yahoo.com.invalid> wrote:

>> Here's one..... You can't boot from a USB stick......
>>
>
>I care because floppy disks are notorious for losing data, only hold a
>MINUTE quantity compared to USB sticks, take up FAR more room than USB
>sticks, can be damaged far easier than USB sticks, last a fraction of the
>time of a USB stick, and for someone to use them in this day and age for
>BACKUPS is just plain daft. Finally there very very FEW machines that even
>COME with a floppy these days. Sufficient for you?

To add to that: I can also boot from a USB stick - at least it's an
option in the BIOS.

I dont know the answer but I would suspect its by design, ie the copy
process first reads the size/free space of the destination & terminates if
insufficient free space, without recognising that you will be replacing an
existing file of the same name. - From recollection of pre Vista the floppy
copy physically starts, then bugs out if insufficient free space, so the new
copy is an improvement, but they forgot to impliment the replacing origonal


A bit of a bugger in your case, but I would further suspect that if there
was a registry workaround that this would also impact on all such copy
processes, which might then have further unintended consequences.

Now I know you said 'dont ask' but I'm intrigued


"Joel" <askme.RemoveThis@forit.com> wrote in message
news:p50g949hfufjqg539g2dfmu4q1bi8uid7o@4ax.com...
>I am an advanced user (been using PCs since the IBM annoucement in
> 1981 - actually used Apple II+'s before that... LOL).
>
> So what I am trying to confirm here is whether this is 'expected
> behavior' for Vista or perhaps something specific to this Dell XPS 420
> (desktop). I am up to date on all SPs and fixes. Dell support says
> this is an MS issue.
>
> Now I may one of the few people still backing up files to diskette
> (don't ask.... LOL)
>
> Up through XP if I drag a file onto A: and the file already exists on
> the diskette, it is replaced after a prompt regardless of the amount
> of free space remaining on the diskette.
>
> In Vista I will also get a prompt but if the amount of free space is
> less than the size of the file, I will get the error message:
>
> "there is not enough space on floppy disk drive"
>
> Now it seems to me, that that should not make a difference as in most
> cases the new file that is replacing the old is either the exact same
> size or perhaps 1 or 2 KBytes (and I mean "K") larger.... I am
> generally backing up documents, spreadsheets and small data files for
> my music production software. The amount of free space can be 100 or
> 200K but for example, if a 300K file is replaced by a 301K file, I
> will see the error.
>
> So once the amount of free remaining space is less than the size of
> the file being replaced, I am forced to delete the old one first
> manually and then do the drag.
>
> Is this new behavior 'by design"? Never had to be concerned with this
> in any OS prior to Vista.
>
> Is there a way in the registry or elsewhere to make it behave like XP?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Joel

Hi, Joel.

Vista uses NTFS natively and reverts to FAT only when coerced. NTFS is a
"journaling" file system which means, among other things, that it first
writes the new copy and verifies it before deleting the old copy. This
means that it practically never fails in the copy operation, even if there
is a power failure in the middle of the job. In virtually every situation,
even if the new copy was unsuccessful, the old copy is still there, intact.
If FAT encountered such a problem, you might be left with both the old and
new files corrupted.

Like you, I'm an advanced user, since the first TRS-80 in December 1977.
And I kept FAT for a long time so that I could use Norton's utilities (when
Peter still wrote them) to do bit-level editing in the FAT or directory (and
that was OFTEN necessary!) I've never learned to read NTFS's MFT - and I've
sometimes wished I could. But today's tools - especially Symantec's - are
so pretty that they are useless for such jobs; at least, they were as late
as about 2000 when I gave up on everything but their NIS, and 2005 when I
abandoned even that. One of my primary partitions is still formatted FAT32,
but its days are probably numbered. My computer still has a "combo" floppy
drive, with both 3.5" and 5.25" in a single unit, and I still have a stack
of 5.25" disks over in the corner - but it's not likely I could read any of
those now without some ancient Norton utility to translate from TRSDOS - or
whatever I formatted them with.

My recommendation is that you buy a USB flash drive (you can get an 8 GB
(and I mean "G") drive for under $50 these days and 1 GB models are almost
free), format it NTFS and use that for all your backups. The aggravation
factor relief alone makes it worthwhile. ;<)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc.RemoveThis@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail 2008 in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1)

"Joel" <askme.RemoveThis@forit.com> wrote in message
news:p50g949hfufjqg539g2dfmu4q1bi8uid7o@4ax.com...
> I am an advanced user (been using PCs since the IBM annoucement in
> 1981 - actually used Apple II+'s before that... LOL).
>
> So what I am trying to confirm here is whether this is 'expected
> behavior' for Vista or perhaps something specific to this Dell XPS 420
> (desktop). I am up to date on all SPs and fixes. Dell support says
> this is an MS issue.
>
> Now I may one of the few people still backing up files to diskette
> (don't ask.... LOL)
>
> Up through XP if I drag a file onto A: and the file already exists on
> the diskette, it is replaced after a prompt regardless of the amount
> of free space remaining on the diskette.
>
> In Vista I will also get a prompt but if the amount of free space is
> less than the size of the file, I will get the error message:
>
> "there is not enough space on floppy disk drive"
>
> Now it seems to me, that that should not make a difference as in most
> cases the new file that is replacing the old is either the exact same
> size or perhaps 1 or 2 KBytes (and I mean "K") larger.... I am
> generally backing up documents, spreadsheets and small data files for
> my music production software. The amount of free space can be 100 or
> 200K but for example, if a 300K file is replaced by a 301K file, I
> will see the error.
>
> So once the amount of free remaining space is less than the size of
> the file being replaced, I am forced to delete the old one first
> manually and then do the drag.
>
> Is this new behavior 'by design"? Never had to be concerned with this
> in any OS prior to Vista.
>
> Is there a way in the registry or elsewhere to make it behave like XP?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Joel