CASE HISTORY #8 - EPILOG
     by the Disk Doctor



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Copyright (C) 1987,  the Disk Doctor.

First published in the Rochester (PC)^3 News:
   Picture City PC Programming Club
   PO BOX 20342
   Rochester, NY 14602
The Disk Doctor may be contacted at this
address, or via CIS [73147,414].

This material may be reproduced for internal
use by other not-for-profit groups, provided
this copyright notice is included.
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10:30am
"Doc, I've been trying to call you all
morning.  Finally, I had to come see you."
It was my friend, Blue.  My quick eye
detected something was amiss.

"Sorry.  I was on the modem all morning.
What's up?"

"I just did a dumb thing.  I accidently
formatted this disk."  He held out a
floppy diskette.  "Can you get it back for
me?"

"How did that happen?  Didn't you see last
month's newsletter.  There was an article
on preventing accidents with FORMAT.BAT ."

"I didn't even read it.  I thought it was
just for people with hard disks."

"People with hard disks are most vunerable
because the sheer amount of data in
jeopardy.  But accidents can happen to
anyone."

"I know.  Believe me, I know."  Blue's
eyes kept avoiding mine.  "I was in a
hurry.  I wanted to format the disk in
drive B: .  But when I typed the command,
I made a mistake and just typed `FORMAT'.
Out of habit, I pressed Enter to proceed,
without even reading the warning message."

I let out a sigh.  "Oh, Blue.  You have to
be more careful."

Blue was staring at the floor.  "I just
got sloppy, I guess.  I promise to be more
careful from now on.  Can you pull out
your UNERASE utility and get me back in
business?"

"No.  You files are gone for good this
time, I'm afraid."

"Hey look, I said I'd be more careful next
time..."

"There's nothing I can do for you."

"But last month, you recovered XX's files.
And he formatted a 10 MB hard disk.  I've
just got a simple floppy disk.  It ought
to be a piece of cake for you!"

"I'm afraid this one is out of my hands,
Blue.  When you format a diskette, DOS
does a full-scale low-level format.  It
lays down address marks and everything.
The sectors will neven fall within the
same physical boundaries. Furthermore, DOS
writes over every single byte on the disk.
There's simply no way to get it back."

"You mean my files are...  "

"Lost.  Kaput.  Wiped clean."

"Please, Doc."  Blue was on his knees,
clutching my arm in both hands.  "Isn't
there anything you can do?"

"Do you have a recent back-up?"

"What do you mean?  Back-ups are only for
hard disks."

"Back-ups are for everybody.  Floppy disks
get damaged, too."




Blue's face collapsed slowly into horror
as the realization hit him.  No more words
were necessary.  The sad truth was written
all over his face.

I shook my head and turned away.  Even
after years in this profession, it still
bothers me when I lose one.



Why do people always wait until its too
late?  When will they ever learn:

`If you can't afford to lose it, you can't
afford NOT to back it up.' "