From: mert0407 AT sable DOT ox DOT ac DOT uk (George Foot) Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: gxx.exe : not COFF ?? Date: 24 Apr 1997 11:55:21 GMT Organization: Oxford University, England Lines: 24 Message-ID: <5jnhn9$2rv@news.ox.ac.uk> References: <335F4439 DOT 7C48 AT pi DOT net> NNTP-Posting-Host: sable.ox.ac.uk To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Precedence: bulk Jasper Drop (zjadied AT pi DOT net) wrote: : after using undelete to retrieve a .cc file it seems something went : terrinbly wrong . : Whenever i try gxx, redir or go32-v2 i get the message .... .exe: not : COFF. : I reinstalled djgpp but that didn't solve it. I'm new at this so i don't : even know what a coff is or what coff2exe does. Please help me!! In short, check your system for viruses. To explain: DJGPP-compiled programs (like gxx.exe, redir.exe, go32-v2.exe) consist of two parts: a real-mode `stub' and a protected-mode `coff' image. The stub (among other things) attempts to find a DPMI host, switches to protected mode and transfers control to the `coff' section, which is the bit of the file that does what the program is intended for. What the error message you are receiving means is that the real-mode stub looked at the rest of the file and found that it wasn't a valid coff image. This can be caused by a virus attempting to infect the exe file, or by the file being corrupted in some other way. You should check for viruses, and then reinstall the broken files from your original ZIPs. -- George Foot Merton College, Oxford