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Posted

I just got back from a major mess in Win Me. Result: I had to reinstall windows.

While it was doing the routine scandisk before installing it told me there was crosslinked files.

Please, can anyone tell me what that is in plain english (as if you explained to a 10 year old or your grandma :D ) what that is. No so called geek-speak please.

 

-Thomas

Posted

Hi Thomas, ok, lets see if you can understand this :D

 

"Crosslinked" means thats two files are both referencing the same spot on a disk at the same time. When files are created they are put in specific areas of a disk and the disk knows where these "areas" are by a code that is assigned to them. These are known as sectors and clusters.

 

Each sector can only contain the data of one file and when two files "think" that their data is in the same sector you get this "crosslinked" message. This usually happens when the system is shut down bfore the disk is completed writing its data.

Posted

well that depends :D

 

What were you doing just before the crash? Why do you think it was a "crash" that required a reinstall of windows? When scandisk comes up with these errors like a crossed linked file, it takes an "educated" guess at which file is the actual owner of the data and assigns it to that file, effectively getting rid of the duplication error.

 

But if it gave ownership of the spot to the wrong program than its possible that the program will have problems. This may cause a "crash" but thats highly unlikely.

 

Normally this happens to strictly "data" since those are the ones that are usually being changed or modified. "System files" which are the first things loaded on the computer don't usually get confused with other data files since those areas were reserved way before any of the other data files.

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