I'vd been using Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS for 7 years and enver had a problem until last night. Since then, when I attempt to save a file, I get an "Access Denied" error message, and am unable to do so. The disk drive is less than half full, and I've never used or set up a password on the computer in question. Everything else on the computer seems fine. I am able to access and make changes in the files, but cannot save anything. A possible hint (or coincidence)is that, although this computer is only used online once every few months, I had sent an email message (with an attchedfile from 5.1)immediately befor the problem started. Seven years of work is involved. I'd be desperately thankful for any suggestions or assistance.

Can you save the file to another name or to
a floppy?

Anyway I think you file is set read only.

From DOS prompt

ATTRIB -r filename.ext

Any way with so much work invested should
you have backups? I had someone else who had
3 year of work on a floppy that developed
bad sectors. A Good Backup is more than 1
readable copy. Test the file on another
machine before considering it good. Your
machine may die anytime.

Good Luck

Alas, don't back up onto floppy though.
I had college work on some floppy disks, which i backed up about 4 times. I took them into college and all of them had failed!
Floppies are notorious, i purchased an old 120meg tape drive to back up on for about ?. I recommend such to back up your media.

IBM

Even if you can no longer save, why should that put 7 years worth of work in jeopardy? If the files were corrupt, or you couldn't access them, then you'd really be in trouble.

If you can't afford to lose work, you can't afford not to back it up.

It's not clear (to me) if these are new files you can't save, or old files you're modifying and can't save.

I have no idea how it could have happened, but logic tells me (but whoever said computers work logically?) the same thing tech-fred said: if it's on old file, maybe the read only attribute is set (but then WordPerfect would usually give you a message when you open the file). If it's a new file, maybe it's possible the directory has a read-only attribute set.

Questions:
•Are you sure WP is still set to save the files in the same directory as before?

•Can you save files in other (non-WP) programs?

•Can you copy another file into the WP document directory?

•Can you copy WP documents into another directory?

It may be possible that there are some bad sectors in the area that you're trying to write to, but I really don't know what kind of message that would give you.
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Is it possible you have inadvertently invoked some form of protect feature within your word processor. This allows you to read a file but not write it back.
It is rather like the dos ATTRIB command.
Keep us posted.

What kind of drive are you copying to?
A floppy might have the write protect tab up; some SCSI hard drives have a jumper that will make the entire hard drive read only; and a read only file is a good possibility. (You alter it in memory but it cannot change the file on disk when you try to save)
There was a good suggestion above. Try to copy the file to another location. (When you copy a read only file the copy is not read only that you create. Can you alter and save it to anywhere--floppy, hard drive, etc.) If you cannot save this copied file, the Wordperfect program may have some corrupt files or changed settings you know nothing about. You should reinstall it from a back up if you have one and all else fails.