Our files are disappearing! and our sysadmin suggests troubleshooting steps that are absolutely impossible. I thought it was just user error, of course, but after we lost an important folder, we went through Salvage and found none of our lost files or directories there. So, the admin suggested that we not work on files over the network, but always copy them to local drives and work on them there, as a troublesooting step. (huh?) However, with 300+ files every day going through 6-8 different kinds of revision, that would just be a total nightmare. We have three boxes running win95b (we're a nonprofit, can't afford to upgrade yet) and one running win2Ksp2. Since I'm network-clueless, my questions are: 1) Is this a useful troubleshooting step at all? I don't see what it proves. 2) I seem to recall, during the win2k setup, some message about "Make sure your sysadmin knows if you're using win95 and win2k on the same network." Does anyone know if this is my faulty memory or a real thing? My best guess is that this is some sort of file-permissions mixup, but I really have no idea. 3) I obviously don't know enough to even ask this question adequately. Can anyone recommend a good resource for the Netware newbie, so I can at least ask my admin questions without sounding like a total fool? Any clues would be helpful.

"Is this a useful troubleshooting step" His logic is sound, what this will prove is whether the problem is Netware issue, or a USER issue. He doesn't understand the logistics of deploying the step. I have 2 suggestions. 1. Set up auditing on the Netware server. I've never done it, but if you search AUDITCON on the Knowledgebase (more later), you should find something. AUDITCON does not support auditing of NSS volumes, so this may not an applicable solution. With auditing set on a file level, you will found out QUICKLY what is happening to these files. I would even searching for a 30 day trial of 3rd party auditware, since you have a serious situation. I have read Novell auditing can be cumbersome. Unfortunately, i can't recommend any. 2. Set up a Windows Share for the user documents (if you have the space). Then map the workstations to the Windows share instead of the Netware server. This will accomplish the same thing, pinpointing the problem to either Novell or the End User. When i say end user, that doesn't necessarily mean they are deleting the files. It could be software intervening (such as Anti Virus software), or possibly even occuring from within an Office type application. "Make sure your sysadmin knows if you're using win95 and win2k on the same network" I don't believe this message is a result of faulty memory. I also don't believe the massage pertains to Netware functionality in any way, I agree with you that is a Windows permission type concern. "Can anyone recommend a good resource for the Netware newbie" I can recommend some places to find answers to problems. First is the Novell Knowledgebase: http://support.novell.com/search/kb_index.jsp Second are the Novell Newsgroups. Many CNE's monitor these forums, and many answers can be found here. support-forums.novell.com to connect to the newgroups through Outlook Express. http://support-forums.novell.com/category/root.tpt to connect through Internet Explorer. I recommend the former. I would add that I have run a Netware 5.0 server for some time, and have had at least 10 incident of users claiming to have had file deleted, and could not SALVAGE them. I was able to restore them from backups. I do not doubt their claims, but my research turned up nothing. I could not replicate even one case of a deleting a file manually, then not being able to salvage. And I tried relentlessy. I found every time a user saved a document in MS Word, it gets deleted by the Netware OS, and then saved. Therefore if user saved the document 10 times, 10 files would show up in SALVAGE for each version. The same occured for the programmers when they reinitialize files, the old versions would continue the be salvageable. This is actually a function of the applications (MS Word, Visual Basic), Netware treats them like any other deleted file. But I have found MANY applications that delete files as part of normal Save/Initialize type operations (where one would instinctively think files would not be being deleted). Sorry to be so long-winded, but I wanted to be thorough.

Thanks! I greatly appreciate the thoroughness. I think that a Windows share is a much better idea than working locally on the files, and I will implement it (or something a great deal like it) immediately. Although viewing Office as a possible culprit is tempting, I doubt it to be the case, as one of the most recent things to disappear was an entire folder of templates. I'm not too surprised to find that saving files from Word doesn't exactly work the way I would have assumed, but I fail to see how this could cause an entire folder to "vanish" (or how this hypothesis works in our case, where we usually Save As the next version in the revision process). In any case, thank you so much for suggesting a troubleshooting step that won't create chaos in its implementation!

If you have a anti-virus ( on server and workstations ), check if your settings is 'delete' file if a virus is found or cleaning failed. For salvage, if you delete a file in a directory 'x', check salvage on 'x' directory. If you delete directory 'x' and this contents, check salvage on 'Deleted.SAV' hidden directory on root of volume ( VolumeName:\DELETED.SAV ) You can undelete all files contents before in directory 'x'. directory structure lost. In NetWare 6, you keep all structure where you have deleted.