On Nov 21, 2006, at 10:52 AM, Bill Steele wrote:

> We have a G4 still running OS 9.2, used mostly for backups. I  
> recently hooked up a LaCie external hard drive and installed the  
> accompanying Silverlining software, and the result seems to have  
> screwed up Applescript's ability to write to files. Scripts that  
> used to work now give error messages.
>
It could be a bad version of the Standard Additions.  There was a  
version in there that didn't work right and wouldn't write to a file  
that didn't exist.

>
> set someText to "this is a test"
> set foo to choose file -->Disk:folder:test
> set outFile to open for access foo with write permission
> write someText to outFile starting at 0
> close access outFile
>
> Works. But...
>
> set someText to "this is a test"
> set foo to :"Disk:folder:test"
also this line doesn't compile

> set outFile to open for access file foo with write permission
> write someText to outFile starting at 0
> close access outFile
>
> --> "File Disk:folder.test wasn't found"

I had this happen on a few machines and wound up having to make sure  
to always have a file around to work on.