Transferring data from word processor disks to laptops?

Question

I have a mid-90s Canon Starwriter 30 word processor with data stored on a couple of disks which I access quite regularly (I am a writer with two books stored on disk).

Can this data be transferred to a laptop in any way? (I am new to laptops and computing so I am not altogether sure)

Answer 1

If you have a laptop with a floppy disk drive, just plug it in and save the files to your documents. OR

If you have a laptop w/out a floppy drive, either

1. Buy a usb floppy drive and do above or

2. Plug your floppy disk into a PC with a Floppy drive and a CD RW (ReWrite) drive and burn the files onto the CD, then put the CD into your laptops CD Drive and save to your documents.

DONE!

If that doesn't work, go to PC World and see if you can get it done there.

Answer 2

I have spent over an hour researching this issue and have not been able to come up with an easy answer for you - UNLESS - and this is a big Maybe: Does the StarWriter 30 allow you to save the data to the 3.5" discs in a 'Text' format? If so then you should be able to copy the files to your laptop if it has a Floppy drive, or, if not, you can Email them to yourself from a friends/work/Library computer and then open the Email on your Laptop and copy the files to your 'My Documents' folder. But you will still need a good Word Processor program to open the files and since I don't know what is available on your laptop, here is a link to the best open source (free and SAFE) Office type program on the net (OpenOffice.org).
OpenOffice.org
http://download.openoffice.org/2.2.1/index.html

If the StarWriter 30 cannot save in a Text format, then you will either have to insert the discs into the StarWriter machine and print out the files (books) and then retype them into the laptop or pay a conversion company to convert the files for you into a format you can use on your laptop because if my research is accurate, the StarWriter disc format is not compatible with Windows PC's. (Of course, this is assuming you have a Windows Laptop - you didn't say what operating system you had.) Just in case you decide to go that route; here are some links for some companies that do data conversions:

File Conversions:
http://www.pivar.com/
http://www.intermedia.uk.com/bfloppy.htm
http://www.luxsoft.demon.co.uk/lux/cconv.html

One more option might be to purchase a file conversion program and attempt to do it yourself - I don't know which option is more cost effective as that was beyond the scope of my research but here is a link for a file conversion software tool I came across:

Winconv, Text Conversion Tool Software
http://www.duhem.com/conven.php3

Hope this points you in the right direction.

Answer 3

If the problem is that you have floppy disks and your laptop doesn't have a floppy drive then there are a couple of solutions.

Buy a USB floppy drive. Plug it into your laptop and put your disk in.

Transfer the stuff off of the floppy disks using a computer that HAS a floppy drive. The you could put them on a flash drive or E-mail them to yourself.

Answer 4

You better ask somebody else to do the job for you.

You can store the info on the 3,5"disks and have sombody with openoffice or staroffice convert the documents to Word, which will probably be available on your laptop.

Good luck with it.

Answer 5

No because they are totally different formats on your word processor select save as to see if their a file extension that pc's understand.