SUMMARY
There is a known problem with the pipe (|) command that causes the pipe to
fail when used after an IF EXIST statement. For example, the command
IF EXIST c:\dos\readme.txt TYPE c:\dos\readme.txt | MORE
normally displays the contents of C:\DOS\README.TXT one screen at a
time. When this command is issued under MS-DOS 5.0, 6.0, or 6.2 no
information is displayed and you are returned to the prompt, even though
the file exists.
In addition, this command results in File Allocation Table (FAT)
corruption on the drive that the TEMP environment variable is pointing
to or on the current drive if no TEMP variable has been set. Running
CHKDSK after this command shows there are "<x> lost clusters in 1
chain," where <x> is dependent upon the size of the file being
processed by the pipe. (The number of lost clusters and chains might
be larger if there was additional FAT corruption prior to using the
pipe.) The FAT corruption caused by this command does not result in
data loss, and you can use CHKDSK with the /F switch to correct the
corruption.
Please refer to the "Microsoft MS-DOS User's Guide and Reference" for
more information on the use of the CHKDSK command.
Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in MS-DOS versions 5.00,
5.00a, 6.00, 6.20, 6.21, and 6.22. We are researching this problem and will
post new information here as it becomes available.