Recently I got a really sweet deal from a laptop roadshow that includes 3GB RAM, 60GB HD space, original Windows Vista, MS Office, and other goodies. It was time for my 3-year old S2020 to move on to a slower-paced life back in Malaysia, as some of the buttons on the keyboard had just died.
I’d like to bring to light a certain ‘feature’ to new users of Windows Vista. Whenever you plug in an external memory device (e.g. thumbdrive, CD-RW, DVD-RW, memory stick, etc), you will most probably encounter a dialog box telling you that your device contains a ‘bad’ file or something and gives you the option to ‘Scan and fix (Recommended)’ or to ‘Continue without scanning’. Here’s what you do: DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT click on ‘Scan and fix’!!
I had plugged in my digicam to transfer some rare-to-happen family photos of my Dad while he was in Malaysia. Thinking of the scan and fix feature to be something like a virus scan, I only realized the horrible truth when I discovered that all my pictures were gone when I then clicked to transfer them to the hard drive. There was only some sort of rudimentary file left on the digicam’s memory card. A quick research online through forums and support websites turned into a night-long frantic search for the missing files.
It seems I wasn’t the only one to have a problem like this. However the only responses these people got from tech support were that they could try downloading a few file recovery programs like Recuva (which this person tried with no success, and so did I), and to make sure that you never unplug your devices without ‘Safely Removing Hardware’, as the sudden cut-off will create corrupt files that triggers this ‘Scan and Fix’ dialog box. It’s the big difference between Windows XP and Windows Vista, because most of the time it’s ok to just yank out your external device, on Vista, it’s a HUGE no-no!
However, I have to note that some people have no problems with this feature, and never lose any files after the scan. Weird, huh? I’ll just choose to stick with clicking ‘Continue without scanning’ in the future.
Here are some helpful links from my research for a little bit more detailed explanation.