Corrupt Word file corrupts whole system

It just happened to me, twice in the last few days. Each time I loose a full day restoring my hard drive from my Time Machine backup. It is really a shame Lion allows an application like Word to corrupt a whole file system!

No shame. This entire thread is a fantasy.

Why, what a helpful comment, etresoft! I guess those of us who have experienced this problem are all delusional. Silly us.

Thanks etresoft, extremely constructive and insightful. I did not expect this kind of comments in apple support communities

If your hard disk is getting corrupted, you need to look for the culprit. It isn't Microsoft Word.

etresoft, your lack of respect is annoying.

Let me explain. I experienced the symptoms described in the original post while editing a 75-page document -- on my MacBook Air with a solid state drive. Word (not OS X) reported an unrecoverable disk error and hung, without specifying the offending file. I force-quit Word. On reopening Word, I found my edits were lost and I had no AutoRecovery file. I reopened my file, began editing again, and within 2 minutes got the same message and a hung machine. I force-quit, rebooted, reopened Word, reopened my file, same deal again.

I started looking for suspicious files and found a Word Work File which, on examination, was associated with the file I had been editing. I could not drag it to Trash because OS X said it was "in use" (even though Word was not running). I had to go to Terminal and force-delete it the old fashioned way (via command line). After that, I was able to edit my file in Word without further mishap.

I think Word's message indicating disk corruption is a false message. I suspect Word is doing something funky as it saves its temporary files, somehow manages to trip over its own feet, and generates the frightening message. I have little doubt that Word's the culprit and am highly suspicious of the kludgy method by which Microsoft temporarily saves edits to open files. Trust me, there was no 'corruption' on my solid-state drive.

FWIW, I agree with etresoft.

If you are so certain the problem is with Word "I have little doubt that Word's the culprit and am highly suspicious of the kludgy method by which Microsoft temporarily saves edits to open files." , you should take up the issue with Microsoft. Here is a link to the Office for Mac forums. http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac?auth=1

What you describe here is nothing like "Corrupt Word file corrupts whole system" nor is it anything like "100% syslogd cpu, /var/logkernel.log filled with hardlink errors. ... Word for Mac completely kills itself and takes the O.S. with it". If Word says it encountered an "unrecoverable disk error" it means Word couldn't recover, not that the disk is corrupted. Word certainly has bugs and has been known to leave some "in use" files when it crashes. That's not news. The topic here is the idea that Word and/or Lion will corrupt your entire system requiring a reinstall. That is a fantasy.

Any application, including Word, could bring out some bug in the OS.

Robert

rccharles wrote:

Any application, including Word, could bring out some bug in the OS.

In theory, that is true. In practice, with an application that has millions of users like Word, a claim that Word can corrupt the file system is an extraordinary claim. Such claims require extraordinary and incontrovertible proof.

I would add I am not the only one observing than aft this 'Word auto recovery errwor' syslogd go crazy (>=100% CPU) and the whole file system got corrupted after some time (in my case if I reboot immediately, file system is ok but

If I wait a few minutes, damage is done)

We all know that Word is unlikely to be he solely cause of this but it might greate a file which might trigger a chain reaction including syslogd in this process which gets the whole file system corrupted. Easy fix, disbale the auto recovery in word. Even if we do not exactly what is going one, this scheme is quite reproducible I several users.

Stop calling this fantasy. It is upsetting

You are the one starting multiple threads on different forums. It seems the people at the Microsoft forums agree with me: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macword/corrupt-disk- is-autosave-the-problem/68edc5eb-b117-4823-9e1c-65022632734e

> Generally, I am not aware of Word being able to corrupt a "disk". I have known it to corrupt a "document", but not the whole disk -- that's something else going on, Word can't do that.

Here's the deal. This is the internet. You could post literally anything here and you would get half a dozen people chiming in with "me too".

Neither using, nor crashing, Microsoft Word will corrupt a healthy hard drive. Corrupted file systems are very rare. MacOS X is designed specifically to prevent that. It is unheard of for Word to cause it. Hard drives are mechanical devices and will always fail eventually. Notebook hard drives are much more prone to failure. If Word won't corrupt a healthy hard drive, and Word is corrupting your hard drive, then you need a new hard drive. The absolute last thing you need to is turn off Time Machine.