# Abort, Retry, Fail? Did "Retry" ever work for you?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abort-retry-fail-did-retry-ever-work-for-you/633026
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 29, 2012, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abort-retry-fail-did-retry-ever-work-for-you/633026 "2012-08-29T12:57:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abort-retry-fail-did-retry-ever-work-for-you/633026/21 "2012-08-29T17:17:36Z")
“Retry” has worked when the root cause of the error was operator error.
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### Author:  [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abort-retry-fail-did-retry-ever-work-for-you/633026/22 "2012-08-29T21:02:31Z")
> [@sweet\_chemist](#):
>
> It worked for the new dataspinners at Morgan Polysoft.
My first thought, too.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2012, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abort-retry-fail-did-retry-ever-work-for-you/633026/23 "2012-08-29T21:23:39Z")
> [@perfectparanoia](#):
>
> About 80% of the time when I saw this message it was because I had done something dumb (like not inserting the disk properly) so, yeah retry worked when I fixed the problem.
>
> The other 20% the disk was boned.
For me it often works when only part of the disk is boned. Then I can get to some, most, or even all of the data I want.
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### Author:  [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2012, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abort-retry-fail-did-retry-ever-work-for-you/633026/24 "2012-08-29T21:55:27Z")
retry could also have benefit when using a problematic 5 1/4. in older or lesser quality ones they sometimes would bind up. removing and giving a finger rotate would free them up.
retry was also useful as mentioned when not moving the lever (5 1/4) or fully inserting (3 1/2) ones. when you had files that might span dozens of disks you could get out of sync with your motions easily.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2012, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abort-retry-fail-did-retry-ever-work-for-you/633026/25 "2012-08-31T17:40:32Z")
Of course it did–when I put the disk back in the drive or closed the drive door.
And, yes, it did work a few other times, when I didn’t do anything. You have to know how disks fail: when a sector is bad, it just means that the data couldn’t be read in a short enough time period. The data may still be retrievable if you go slow enough–that’s how Scandisk repaired bad sectors, and I’m sure chkdisk still does it that way. If you catch something right on the brink, it might not work one time but work another time.
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### Author:  [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2012, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abort-retry-fail-did-retry-ever-work-for-you/633026/26 "2012-08-31T23:19:57Z")
> [@Scholar\_Beardpig](#):
>
> Abort means ‘cancel everything.’ Fail means ‘keep going without succeeding at this particular task.’
Typically, Fail would tell the program that the data couldn’t be read, and Abort would kill the program outright. Retry would read the requested data again and, if it worked, would just give the program the data, without telling it that there had been an error.
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2012, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abort-retry-fail-did-retry-ever-work-for-you/633026/27 "2012-09-01T01:41:03Z")
> [@billfish678](#):
>
> I wouldnt bet my life on it having never worked, but I am pretty sure it never did. And I think I’ve seen the old “abort/retry/fail” message more times than I’ve had sex in my lifetime.
> [@leahcim](#):
>
> You should apply that same philosophy to trying to have sex. Try to even up that ratio. 🙂
Please tell me you didn’t think this advice through considering you’re pairing up sex and that particular computer error’s wording :eek:
I can’t recall retry ever working. Fail, though, that seems to have worked once or twice, skipping a missing shared dll, maybe?
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