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I got a Windows 10 BSOD that collected results up to 55 or 60% then restarted. After the restart, I got a 2.31 GB file named DUMP18c7.tmp in the root folder of the drive where the equally massive pagefile resides.

I was only reading files, but what are the chances that the files were corrupted and in general do crashes, BSODs and power losses corrupt files while being read such as a video or song being played?

To get an idea about the tmp file, I've tried Blue screen viewer and it didn't return anything, so what can I do with it? what does it contain?

user10191234
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  • I think you need to use less emotive & more precise language. 2.3 GB is not 'massive' by anyone's standards these days… & neither is 8GB RAM. These days that's 'adequate if you don't push it much'. – Tetsujin Sep 19 '20 at 17:39
  • I don't, I only have some movies and I used it for programming using Notepad and an old compiler. As for the **massive**, it might not be but how do I open it without hanging or crashing the system? – user10191234 Sep 19 '20 at 17:46
  • What is the question/issue? Find the BSOD causing error, search for it on Google. Sometimes its a broken CPU, sometimes a disk write/interface error, sometimes its drivers. – dza Sep 19 '20 at 21:42
  • I am not finding anything in the system event log. and the utility I used (from the post) isn't returning anything. – user10191234 Sep 20 '20 at 05:55
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    @Tetsujin 2.3 GB is objectively pretty massive for a file. – InterLinked Sep 20 '20 at 15:05
  • @InterLinked - it's not even an average size for files on many of my computers here. It's tiny compared to the 100GB+ project files I use for movie or audio editing; some of my media libraries [that's the base data not the work done from it] are 250GB. Sure it's big for a text file but not for media. A DVD rip is going to be 8GB or so, a BluRay 50. 'massive' is just too emotive. It conveys a sense of urgency that the situation doesn't warrant. – Tetsujin Sep 20 '20 at 15:14
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    user10191234 - practically, you have a dump file that's no use to you because you can't open it. Delete it. I can only guess that you're on a 32-bit OS, otherwise a couple of GB of text file would be slow to open but would open. Files don't get corrupted if you crash whilst reading them; that really only happens if you're writing. – Tetsujin Sep 20 '20 at 15:26
  • @Tetsujin: is the non-corruption with power loss total? meaning that even the file's metadata doesn't get corrupted because the answers are more or less not conclusive online or even at SU. – user10191234 Sep 20 '20 at 17:11
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    999 out of 1000 times, even a total power loss will not corrupt anything that's not being written right this very nanosecond. Because of the way drives use write-back caching & the OS will usually write a completely new file before deleting the old version, even when writing you can often get away with it [but don't rely on that, it does sometimes fail… & fails badly on USB sticks & SD cards which can cache differently… regular HD/SSD is usually fine] – Tetsujin Sep 20 '20 at 17:14
  • If you have the answer that meet the requirements of SU, post it, it would be a definitive answer about the topic. And I am on 64-bit Windows 10 19041, no programs installed except Chrome. – user10191234 Sep 20 '20 at 17:21

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