Word 2003 Keeps Crashing

[Jane Tutor]

I have WORD 2003. Whenever I finishing working on a file that's on a floppy
disk, and I close that file and take out the disk, and then I click on "File"
to open another WORD document that's on the C drive, the computerimmediately
spins the A drive and it won't stop. The "Look In" Dialog box never has a
chance to come up. I have to use the task manager to try to shut down WORD,
and it won't shut down. It says that WORD is not responding. (It says it
twice). I get a dialog box that asks if I want to report the error to
Microsoft. Meanwhile, the A drive continues spinning and clacking, and I
have to shut down the computer to get it to stop. I have done the detect and
repair in WORD several times, but it hasn't helped. I'm using Windows XP,
and I have Office 2003 Professional. Is there a fix for this problem?

Jane

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Yes. The fix is to NEVER (and I mean NEVER) edit a file directly on a
removable disk. There is no quicker way to cause file corruption and data
loss, due to the way that Word creates and uses temporary files.

The correct thing to do is to copy the file to your hard drive, edit it
there, completely close the file, and then copy it back to the removable
disk.

As you see, when you remove a floppy (or other removable media) after
editing a file, even if it's been closed by Word, Word does not completely
close various temporary files immediately, and may in fact keep them open
until Word itself is closed.

What you are doing is something that Word was NOT designed to do. Why it
lets you try to do it anyway is a complete mystery to those of us who've
been preaching the same sermon for at least the past 10 years.

 

[Beth Melton]

Herb provided you the 'fix', but just so you know, the spinning of the
A drive is Word searching for temp files and attempting to delete
them. If you haven't encountered corrupt files yet then you've been
very lucky. I've lost count of the number of folks who have come to
the newsgroup hoping to recover a corrupt file on a floppy disk.
Unfortunately they had to learn this lesson the hard way. :-(

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Jane Tutor]

This is all news to me. I was taught to use floppy disks exclusively in my
computer classes. I have always used floppy disks when I create documents
and then open and work on those documents right from the disk whenever I need
to.

So, why does Word keep spinning the disk and it wont stop? It used to have
a box that popped up that said the A drive was not accessible when I've
removed a disk. Now I can't open a file, or even close Word by clicking on
"File" at the top of the Word window, without having to shut down the entire
computer. Is there a way to get it to stop searching for the disk if it ever
happens again?

Jane

 

[Beth Melton]

If your computer instructor taught you to use the floppy disks
exclusively then I'd say your computer instructor didn't have much
"real world" experience with Word. If he or she did they would have
encountered file corruption at some point. As an instructor myself
this is one of the first things I train in my Word classes since I
encountered this long ago.

Training to work directly off a floppy is like telling a business
person they must work exclusively out of their briefcase and aren't
allow to remove a file. A floppy disk is a means of transporting a
file much like a briefcase. Just as you should take files out of your
briefcase and spread them out on your desk so you have room to work
you should take the file off the floppy and work with it on your local
drive because Word needs room to work as well.

Aside from the various temp files it creates in the same location as
the document, when you save a document Word creates a temp file with
all of your modifications since the last save, deletes the original,
and moves the temp file to take the original document's place. IOW
when you save there are two copies of the file on the floppy disk at
that given time. If you are running short of space Word will do as
much as it can but if it doesn't have enough room there is no place to
go so it ends the transaction. You may encounter a message but then
again you may not depending on what specifically is happening at the
time.

In any event, I don't know why you don't encounter the "A:\ Drive not
available" message. I suspect it has to do with the way Word searches
for the temp files. They've made a lot of changes to how Word accesses
files through the years in order to optimize processing. I know you
don't want to hear this but the only way to truly prevent it from ever
happening again is to not work directly off a floppy.

Instead you should double-click My Computer to open it and route to
the Floppy. Make sure you have a Restored window (you should be able
to see part of the Desktop) then drag/drop the file from the Floppy
window to the Desktop. Then double-click to open the file and start
Word.

Once you're finished editing and after the file is closed then
right-click the file and select Send to/3 1/2" Floppy. Once the copy
is complete then just drag the file from the Desktop to the Recycle
bin. If you use this method I believe you'll find that response time
while working in the document is faster than working directly off the
floppy. Not to mention your chances of a corrupt file will have
substantially decreased.

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Jane Tutor]

Beth,

Thankyou for your in-depth response. You anticipated my questions about
copying the floppy disk file to my computer before working on it.

I just bought a new computer and installed Office Professional 2003. I
never had a problem with the floppys when I had Word 2000. I was afraid that
i broke the computer or did something to mess up the Office Software.

Thanks again for your response. I'm considering forwarding your
instructions to my "Introduction to Computer's" instructor to see what he
says. It should be interesting.

Jane

 

[Beth Melton]

Glad to help out.

Feel free to pass this information along to your instructor. I can
also throw in a bunch of past posts made to the newsgroups in which
others have come here trying to find a method for recovering a corrupt
file after working with it directly off a floppy if you'd like some
proof that unfortunately it *does* happen. :-(

Also, to add some additional information, as of Word 2002 they
included an option in Word under Tools/Options/Save called "Make local
copy of files stored on a network or removable drive" as an attempt to
overcome this issue. BUT I tested this option and I did encounter a
corrupt file. Of course it just happened to be an important file! So
if you must work directly off a floppy then do turn this option on,
however do so at your discretion.

--
Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/