Don't be stymied by an arcane error message

Reader Joe Preston encountered one of Windows' least-clear and most-useless error messages:

"A new problem has crept into my Windows XP Home machine. I can't add files to a CD-R anymore. If I try to add a file while the disk is spinning, I get the Blue Screen of Death that states I have a 'bad pool header' (whatever that means).

"And when I'm in a Windows utility like Explorer or Power Desk 6, if I highlight a file and hit Delete, the program fails. This also happens if I'm in Word or Excel and try to delete a file from the Open dialog box.

"These problems all seem related, and while I can't verify it, they seem to have appeared after I upgraded to Office 2003. Do you have any ideas as to where I can look?"

Ah, yes. 'Bad pool header:' Joe discovered what may very well be Microsoft's most-poorly explained error message.

Even digging into this error message's numeric content won't help much. For example — and I'm not making this up — if "parameter 3" is 0x3, then the error message is telling you "the read-back flink freelist value" is indicating that "the pool freelist is corrupt."

Wow, my flink indicates corruption! Thanks, Microsoft — that clears up everything!

OK, it clears up nothing. That's why the in-depth topic in my column posted at Windows Secrets this week is: How to deal with this nearly useless error message, with several ways to solve the problem.

Also in this column:

• Vista "user profile" is missing in action
  
  
• What? A trial version of Vista?
  
  
• External-drive format dilemma thwarts backups

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