samba - Jan 2008 - file differences when copying files to linux, using samba

I have a backup file server running linux 2.6.23.12 and samba 3.0.25b
I have four sata hard drives configured as a software raid 5 array.
I have a client machine running windows xp pro sp2, with all the patches.
I have configured samba, and copied all my files to my backup file server,
using the windows explorer, and 'copy' and 'paste'.

I also wrote a python program that computes the md5sum for all files 
in a directory,
and writes out a file per directory with that info.

After I copied a directory tree containing 255gb of files, I ran 
'diff --recursive'
on the windows tree and the samba tree (from windows).
There were roughly 100 differences reported.

I ran my python program locally on the linux system, and it reported 
that roughly
100 md5sums for files differed.

I have looked at the samba logs, and noticed nothing interesting.
I looked at the status of the raid array, and it is ok.
I ran smartmontools, and all the hard drives have no problems.

Any ideas how to track down this problem?

thanks,
jeff


My network is gigabit ethernet, with intel on-motherboard ethernet nics on both
machines.

I don't know what to do to track down this problem.
Any pointers would be appreciated.

jeffunit wrote:
> 
> I ran my python program locally on the linux system, and it reported 
> that roughly
> 100 md5sums for files differed.
> Any ideas how to track down this problem
---
	Could it be a code-page conversion issue?

	Have you tried copying the file over with "cp" from
windows to your server? (cp from 'cygwin')?

	Have you tried comparing some of the differing files and
looking for a pattern?

	Does the "change" get "undone" if you use explorer to
copy the file back from the linbox to the winbox?

	I use a similar setup to backup my files -- though I use
'rsync' from windows to keep the server copy synchronized (which
gets backed up nightly w/xfsdump.

	I can't say why, exactly, but I wouldn't trust windows
"explorer" to copy over such a large number of files.