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Software Failure

It is possible for data to be lost due to software bugs, or even just poor software design. For example, a program might have a problem where it crashes upon saving a file. Many programs, when saving a file over top of an older file with the same name (such as when you select "Save" to update the current document you are working on) will first save the new file under a temporary name, and then rename it to the correct file name when the save is completed. But others may remove the old file first, so that if the software crashes during the write process, the old file will be lost as well.

Some software bugs may be even more damaging, even causing the loss of files unrelated to them. This doesn't happen very often, fortunately.

Next: File System Corruption

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