Undocumented error file status icon in Folder Diff Window

[dkreimer314]

I recently had to restore my C: drive from an Acronis disk image backup. My original C: drive failed to boot normally and was booting into Safe Mode. Since the backup was made a week prior to my restore operation, I copied some important data folders from the original C: drive to a USB drive. I restored the disk image to a new disk drive. When I booted from it, CHKDSK ran, but did not find any errors, after which it booted successfully into Windows 7 as I had hoped. Then I used DiffMerge Folder Diff Windows to compare the latest version of my critical data folders on my USB drive with my newly restored C: Drive. On one folder, one of the files that resided on both sides of the Folder Diff Window displayed in red, but instead of the usual "not equal" icon, it shows a red circle containing a gray "x". I have not been able to find any documentation regarding the meaning of this icon.
The files in question are SQL Server script files. I can open files on both sides of the Folder Diff Window using notepad and they look identical. When I open the latest saved version from my USB drive using SQL Server Management Studio, the file opens properly, implying that the file is healthy on my original C: drive from which it was copied. However, when I open the file on the newly restored drive, SQL Server Management Studio crashes with a message saying that the program has stopped working, implying that the file is corrupt in some way. I have these questions regarding this situation:
1. In the Folder Diff Window, what exactly does the red circle with gray "x" file status icon mean?
2. Assuming that the file on the restored C: drive is corrupt in some way, how can I detect such corruption in other files?

[Beth]

Do you have links that it can't find possibly?

Check out this past post where a similar thing is discussed: http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic ... 33&t=13879.

[dkreimer314]

Thanks, Beth. It turns out that the full path names of all three files that had the error were extremely long. Somehow they were too long for Windows to treat them in a stable manner. I shortened the file names so that the fullpath names were no longer than other files in the same folder that were not showing the red-circle-with-x icon, and reran the folder comparison. The error icons magically disappeared.

I am not sure how the fullpath names became longer than Window's stable limit. When I tried to rename one of the files from the shortened name back to the original name, Windows displayed an error message stating that the file name was too long.

One of the files was an MS Word 2010 document, and I noticed that when I opened the file in Word, I got a message stating that the document could not be registered. After I shortened the name, I was able to open it again without receiving any error message.

Shortening the file names for the SQL Server scripts also eliminated the issue of SSMS crashing when opening the files.

All's well that ends well...