Invalid long file names found by scandisk but never corrected

[smit]

Ok my system has never been the most stable, infact it is uncommon for me not to have my computer crash at least once during the time im using it. Every thing i have done never seems to cure any problems though

At present the biggest problem i face is that scandisk keeps finding 'invalid long filenames' on my hard disk and not fixing them. I feel that this is the root of all my problems and if this was sorted then the rest of the system might become more stable.

Please keep replies simple and instructions easy to follow

Thanks in advance

Smit

 

[reghakr]

smit,

Mine would too, untill I went into the options of Scandisk, clicked the Advanced button and unchecked "Report MS-DOS mode name-length errors".

I've done it on all my machines, never had a problem, so I don't think that's the problem at all.

What's the error message or what are you doing when Windows "crashes"?

reghakr

 

[Malakili]

Hmm, i had an error similair to yours, everytime Windows crashed and ran scandisk at startup, it came up with `invalid long filenames` but never cured them. Now i can`t remember exactly how i found out the file names though it might of been from looking at the log, or from running scan disk from inside windows as opposed to the dos one, but once i found he names of the files, i simply corrected them from inside windows, just renamed the couple that were wrong and that cured it (as would be expected). What amused me though was the file names were`nt exactly long, some where errors in the names, klike having a comma instead of a dot in the name, or using invalid characters. Which is strnge in itself, as windows shouldn`t save wrong file names in the first place, obviously something had corrupted my file names, but what i don`t know.

Not much help i`m sure but the best i can ofer i`m afraid.

Malakili

 

[reghakr]

It's not the length of the particular file, it's the total length of all directories leading to that file. EG, ones that are buried deep inside subdirectories.

Doesn't affect anything in Windows.

reghakr