Why is it everytime you put in a floppy disk you have to format it?

Question

I know I have things on some of my floppy disks and i dont want to delete them but everytime I put one in it asks if I want to format it and I don't! I want to see whats on there... is there any way you can look at it without formatting it?

Answer 1

You dont have to format floppy drives every time for usage. Once you format them, then you can re-use them.

You are getting the message due to:
1. your FDD has gone bad. Its not recognizing the floppies correctly. Try to clean the FDD By using a Disk Cleaner diskette. They are available everywhere and are cheap.
OR
2. Your Floppies are bad. Try to scan them once you format for bad disks. Use chkdsk utility.
OR
3. There is a virus on your PC which is causing this. Scan your PC for any such virus.

Answer 2

I hate floppy disks and drives. The reason you are having issues is because of the alignment of the head of the drive. If they are off by a hair the disk will not be readable. Of course you can try to eject and insert the disk a number of times and it might read it correctly, eventually. If the disk was formatted in another drive then you're probably screwed. Get a keychain flash drive, they work wonders! Otherwise, try finding different floppy drives to work with.

Lastly, always put your data on at least 2 disks. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to move data on to a floppy in order to move something from one computer to another and then having that stupid disk go bad in the whole 10 minutes that I used it.

Answer 3

You have to remember that floppy disks have a short lifespan for the data contained within. Therefore if data is several months or years old (depending on the quality of the diskette), then you may have corruption that's unreadable to the diskette drive.

Additionally, diskettes in general are not the best type of multimedia storage devices. They're generally made cheap and easily broken or damaged. They develop problems mostly due to age of the diskette (or reading drive), dust, sunlight, or misuse.

The best way around your problem is to try and trick the system into thinking the diskette is already formatted. This can be done by cancelling the format and trying to read the diskette again, or insert it multiple times. Another way is to insert another diskette and then switch the diskettes and hit F5 to view the contents in the Window.

Best advise is to stash your stuff on CD-RWs. These are much like diskettes where you can erase and rewrite information to the CD itself. They last longer. Additionally, diskettes are on their way out. With CDs, DVDs, and Flash Drives, the market for diskettes is slim these days.

Answer 4

you see the floopy disk maybe defective or some sort that the floopy drive itself. if you try new formatted one then still ask for it. if the disk is the only problem use norton utility named as DISK DOCTOR. you can still recover though but sometimes not 100%. if the drive is the problem better if you could buy a new one.

Answer 5

You should be able to look at it without formatiing it. If you format it then you won't be able to look at it. Something is wrong with your computer or you have bad floppies.

Answer 6

well floppies are really old anyways get a flash drive. the data might be damaged

Answer 7

Of course there is. When it asks if you want to format, select no. Use windows explorer to find your files.