"01-01-2098" & "31-12-2097"

  • Thread starter Thread starter Opinicus
  • Start date Start date
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Opinicus

{WinXP all updates in place}

My 500 gig USB drive (W:) hiccuped (for lack of a better term) the other day
and for a while Windows was unable to access it. (An error message that
flashed by said something about "W:*" being missing or somesuch.

A reboot brought it back. Just this morning I noticed that the last-modified
dates have been changed to "01-01-2098 00:00:00" on 4 files and to
"31-12-2097 23:00:00" on one file. The files (videos all) seem to be OK.

What happened? And how do I fix the dates?
 
Opinicus said:
{WinXP all updates in place}

My 500 gig USB drive (W:) hiccuped (for lack of a better term) the other
day and for a while Windows was unable to access it. (An error message
that flashed by said something about "W:*" being missing or somesuch.

A reboot brought it back. Just this morning I noticed that the
last-modified dates have been changed to "01-01-2098 00:00:00" on 4 files
and to "31-12-2097 23:00:00" on one file. The files (videos all) seem to
be OK.

What happened? And how do I fix the dates?
Click to expand...

There are many so-called "touch" utilities that you can use
to change a file date, e.g. from here: http://pobox.com/~stevemil.
 
Opinicus said:
{WinXP all updates in place}

My 500 gig USB drive (W:) hiccuped (for lack of a better term) the other
day and for a while Windows was unable to access it. (An error message
that flashed by said something about "W:*" being missing or somesuch.

A reboot brought it back. Just this morning I noticed that the
last-modified dates have been changed to "01-01-2098 00:00:00" on 4 files
and to "31-12-2097 23:00:00" on one file. The files (videos all) seem to
be OK.

What happened? And how do I fix the dates?
Click to expand...

This is in fact a more serious problem than it appears. Under certain
circumstances file dates of this type can affect the system clock with all
the side effects that causes. There are a number of utilities that you can
use to change the file timestamps back to reality. My personal choice is
Touch Pro. This particular one has a try before you buy mode that will
allow reset of file time stamps of individual files (but not folders).
Should you wish to buy the full version, IIRC, it is not expensive by any
means.
 
M.I.5¾ said:
This is in fact a more serious problem than it appears. Under certain
circumstances file dates of this type can affect the system clock with all
the side effects that causes. There are a number of utilities that you
can use to change the file timestamps back to reality. My personal choice
is Touch Pro. This particular one has a try before you buy mode that will
allow reset of file time stamps of individual files (but not folders).
Should you wish to buy the full version, IIRC, it is not expensive by any
means.
Click to expand...

How can a weird or corrupted file date have an effect on the
System Clock. Please elaborate!
 
Pegasus (MVP) said:
How can a weird or corrupted file date have an effect on the
System Clock. Please elaborate!
Click to expand...

A good question that I asked myself when it affected me a good few years
ago. The best answer that I got was that Windows can have a problem with
file dates under certain circumstances (which I have long forgotten). It
creates an internal error condition that causes Windows to resolve the
resolve the issue by adjusting the system clock to suit. IIRC it is only
file dates a long time in the future that are a problem.

The explanation certainly matched the reality that my system kept adjusting
the system clock to the late 21st century for no apparent reason. On
posting to another forum, the above explanation was offered with a bit more
detail. However, searching out the files with the late 21st century time
stamp and correcting them completely solved the problem.
 
M.I.5¾ said:
A good question that I asked myself when it affected me a good few years
ago. The best answer that I got was that Windows can have a problem with
file dates under certain circumstances (which I have long forgotten). It
creates an internal error condition that causes Windows to resolve the
resolve the issue by adjusting the system clock to suit. IIRC it is only
file dates a long time in the future that are a problem.

The explanation certainly matched the reality that my system kept
adjusting the system clock to the late 21st century for no apparent
reason. On posting to another forum, the above explanation was offered
with a bit more detail. However, searching out the files with the late
21st century time stamp and correcting them completely solved the problem.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I am fully aware that the system clock will affect file
dates but I have never heard of a file date affecting the system
clock. It would be nice if the phenomenon was readily reproducible.
 
Pegasus (MVP) said:
Interesting. I am fully aware that the system clock will affect file
dates but I have never heard of a file date affecting the system
clock. It would be nice if the phenomenon was readily reproducible.
Click to expand...

I just wish I could remember more about it now. The date being wrong caused
so much trouble that the one thing I did have to do, was write a short piece
of code that continually monitored the system date and halted windows when
it detected that the year had changed. It used to frequently detect this
until I found out what the problem actually was and corected the offending
files. The one thing I never found out was how it got started in the first
place.
 
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