PC Tools

From: Fred Cisin <cisin_at_xenosoft.com>
Date: Sun Sep 19 11:38:17 1999

> >PC-Tools cost me a lot of data. In order to keep its pretty displays, it
> >corrupts the critical error handler to IGNORE all errors without reporting
> >them! That sucks.
> Which version? I just bought a new in the sealed box copy of version 9
> (central point PC tools, local Goodwill has a pile of them)

I've forgotten which version, and I really should have included that along
with such a damning complaint. I'll try to find out this next week.

The symptom:
About ten years ago (ON-Topic :-)

I had been using an AT (real IBM) with a flaky drive with PC-Write as
"reception machine" for text editing of phone log, telephone messages,
text editing of invoices, text editing of name and address files, etc. I
was starting to get incidents where it would seek over and over, really
SAWING away, followed by either finally finding the sector, or giving a
critical error ("Sector Not Found\nAbort, Retry, Ignore", or "data
error\nA,R,I"). Sometimes a RETRY would work, sometimes I would save
under a new name, and rename the old file BADSECS.XXX. When I installed
PC Tools and switched over to it, it would saw, but then continue on. I
would assume "Ah, it finally found it!". It NEVER gave me the critical
error messages ("...,\nAbort, Retry, Ingore?") that I had been accustomed
to getting. Then, eventually, I found that my files were full of 512 byte
long chunks of garbage. and/or missing 512 byte long pieces of file. It
had apparently been "handling" the critical errors with an "IGNORE", so as
to not have its displays messed up by "...\nA,R,I" messages.

I finally switched to Windoze 3.0, and then 3.10, and it has been usable,
and eventually replaced the drive. It's been OK for the last 10 years,
although I may soon replace the whole thing in order to implement a
Caller-ID capable answering system (when people don't block it, it's a LOT
more reliable for knowing what number to call back than "5 5 5 mumble
mumble" on the answering machine.)
Received on Sun Sep 19 1999 - 11:38:17 BST