I have a floppy disk problem?

Question

okay so i saved all these things on my floppy disk and all of a sudden today it's saying i need to format the disk to open it or something.. but in order to do that i have to delete all the stuff.. which i don't have saved on the computer.. only on the disk. Is there anyway i could get around this?
or is there anyway i could view ALL of my recent documents not just the last 15 ect.?? so i can write it down and get the things again?

thanks in advance

Answer 1

Hi there:

I answer this question all the time.

HERE is a complete copy and paste of the last ANSWER I gave, which has all the information you need. As you state, you DO NOT WANT to format or scandisk or defrag, or anything that touches the tracks on your floppy !

SEE below:

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I lost my data I saved on floppy?

I saved some email messages on a floppy disc and brought it home from work and went to look at them on my computer at home and when I tried to open the floppy it said disco not formatted would you like to format now yes no. Have I lost my data? What should I do?
Additional Details

they are no longer in my email. just on floppy. If i take it back to work will it work there it did the other day.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

Hi there:

You have probably NOT lost any data.
Floppy copy and read problems are VERY common, and people have forgotten how to use them and maintain them.

I looked at the two other answers before mine. The first states that you lost everything. _ WRONG !!
The second states that you are using a different operating system ( WRONG -- a floppy is a floppy is floppy unless you are using a MAC vs PC, and even you would be smart enough to know that they are different !)
[[ Another rare situation is where you are using an OLD, 3 1/4 inch floppy on one machine, and a "new" 3 1/4 inch floppy drive on another machine, since the DRIVES Themselves, are different FORMATS ( the operating systems ( DOS, WIndows would be the same, and understand both formatting systems, but the mechanical heads and tracks are different ! ) There a dozens of different Floppy read/writers, and different FORMATs and sizes. The first IBM PC shipped with no harddrive, no floppy, and 16K of ram. There was a big DIN plug identical to the old keyboard plug, that you plugged in a cable that went to your Audio Cassette player, to load programs.. Then came the full height, single sided, low density, 5 1/2 inch floppy, then the high density, then the low density, two sided floppy, then the two sided High density floppy. Then all of these were replaced with the LOW density 3 1/4 inch floppy, and later the High Density 3 1/4 inch.
IFF you have a normal, modern 3 1/4 inch HIGH density disk writer at the office, and try to use it in the ancient 3 1/4 LOW density disk unit at home, the older low density machine will not know what the tracks on the floppy are - it will be reading two tinier high density tracks at the same time and get garbage data.
The odds of you having a 720 K floppy Machine at home, and a 1.44 Meg floppy Unit at work, are almost zero, but I thought I would mention it ! ) ]]
The second answer states to but the floppy BACK in the originating computer, and this actually WOULD have a high success rate.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO " NOT " scandisk, or defrag or touch the floppy in ANY WAY.
Make your disk ' holy " at once, and prevent any writing of any kind, by flipping the little tab down so that BOTH HOLES on the corners are open ( holy disk ), so that your disk is protected from evil ( programs that WRITE or try to repair it- which would destroy YOUR data in the process of " repairing " the tracks -- they do not give a hoot about YOUR data, only in re-viving the useability of the disk -- BEWARE ! ! )

There are many precautions in using floppies. The first, is to ALWAYS FULL FORMAT ( not the silly "quick format" ) the disk before writing to it, even if it is NEW and out of the package...

The other problem is the LACK of use of ordinary floppy drive machines. They continually build up layers of dust, and when people DO go to use them, they gum up the heads with dirt. There are floppy cleaner disks available at most computer stores and dollar stores, and you SHOULD clean them if they have not been in use very much...

Another problem is the slight variation in the HEAD size, and the HEAD alignment, of different floppy machines. You can get slight differences in technologies, track sizes, and track placements, and although they "work" in other drives, the floppies used on one machine may be just a bit off-center written, and cause intermittent read/ write errors.

Finally - HOW TO RECOVER THE DATA

When you erase something, the data is still there. DOS/ WIdows systems just take the first letter of the NAME of the file on the directory look up index on the outter rows of the disk, and change it to a "? " mark. This gives the system permission to write new data on top of the old files.

You have not erased or written anything on top, so that you just have to be able to READ the data that is already there.

If the floppy blank that you used is defective, with BAD BLOCKS or areas of the disk that will not magnetize, then when you WROTE the data, there may be tiny areas of the data that are lost. THE WORST place for this to happen, is in the DIRECTORY, outer tracks, since this is where the computer looks to see what fields are on the disk. If there is a problem in the outer tracks, the computer will refuse to look further.

There are programs that IGNORE standard look-up procedures, and just scan the entire disk anyway, and look at what is there.
The programs examine the valid data, and fill in any bad sectors or bits, to give you a COMPLETE file, that DOS/WIndows can see, and use. It may have a bit of garble in TEXT , for example, where the repair program filled in missing computer binary Zeros and Ones to make what DOS/ WIndows " sees" as a ' complete' file, but most of the data you want would be there.

The Method I would use would be :
1/ WRITE PROTECT YOUR FLOPPY IMMEDIATELY ! (holy disk)
2/ use a floppy cleaner in your home machine, and insert and re-insert the disk to see if by luck you get a good alignment.
3/Take the floppy back to work, and again, use the floppy cleaner, and insert - re- insert hoping to get a single, valid READ. If you get a read, back it up on the harddrive, and get a new floppy, reformat it, and make a new copy.
4/ At home or office, use the utilities below - there are FREE download " trials" and a completely FREE download repair utility that has very high ratings.

Next time, Full format first. Use a floppy cleaner disk. Make a backup of the backup!

Here are the links:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/pcinspector...
FREE - Excellent ratings !!!!

http://www.howtodothings.com/computers/a...
Tips on USING floppies, and 3 PAY for programs $40 to $70


http://www.bmtmicro.com/bmtcatalog/win/r...
3 PAY FOR programs about $20

You should have your data back in short order!

Hope this helps

robin

Source(s):
I have a tiny website
kidbots.com
which causes me to have hundreds of old computers, most with floppies. I have to deal with them constantly.



Asker's Rating:
Thank you very much. I'll have to read it over and over to soak it in. I really want this data back.


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As you can see by the many possibilities above, you will likely
get most or all of your data back if you follow the steps above.

Another link to a similar question with more ideas:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AsjDY3UD6FFiGJBSUrjpwbbsy6IX?qid=20060718171127AA0Rufo

Good luck !
Make copies of floppies, and rotate them - always FORMAT, FULL, before saving data!

robin

Answer 2

I don't think you can show more than 15 recent documents in the list. Also, why a floppy and why would you not save the things on your computer. And I've never had this problem but if a floppy is only 1.44 MB, why would you have to format it, since the format would take up some very precious space. In my opinion you should get a cheap 5 dollar USB key or something.

Answer 3

Here is what I used quit often with a passion. I would go into the start menu and do a search. I would advanced all hidden files documents then type the extension such as example: .DOC JPG TIF what ever it had on it.. Next down load this trial software called UN.delete.. Good luck

Answer 4

While your data is probably lost, you can try a few things.

Go to the command prompt and CD (change directory) to a blank directory:
cd c:/blank

The type:
copy a:*.*

You may be able to copy the files.

If not try:

scandisk a: (it may be scandisc a: it has been a long time since I used that command)

That may be able correct the problem.

If those do not work, and the data is critical, you may have to consult a professional.

In case you haven't learned, never have only one copy of data, always backup.

Answer 5

you should stop using floppy disks they are way too unreliable. instead get yourself a flash drive. there are no moving parts to mess up