How do I format a floppy disc for word?

[Guest]

The last time I saved a project to my "a" drive and put in my disc it stated
that the disc was not formatted and I could not open the files saved to that
disc.

 

[Guest]

First of all, DoNot attempt to save directly to a floppy or open a file on a
floppy through Word. Always save/copy to your hard disk _first_, work with
that file then copy it back to a floppy when finished. The disk may be
formatted, but the error may have come up if you were trying to save directly
to it.

Formatting of disks (floppy or otherwise) is done using the Operating
System. When you put an unformatted disk in you should be prompted to format
it then. If not, Open My Computer as a window, right-click the floppy (A:
Drive) icon and choose Format form the shortcut menu.

HTH |:>)

 

[Guest]

Thank you. This has been most helpful to me.

First of all, DoNot attempt to save directly to a floppy or open a file on a
floppy through Word. Always save/copy to your hard disk _first_, work with
that file then copy it back to a floppy when finished. The disk may be
formatted, but the error may have come up if you were trying to save directly
to it.

Formatting of disks (floppy or otherwise) is done using the Operating
System. When you put an unformatted disk in you should be prompted to format
it then. If not, Open My Computer as a window, right-click the floppy (A:
Drive) icon and choose Format form the shortcut menu.

HTH |:>)

 

[Guest]

First of all, DoNot attempt to save directly to a floppy or open a file on a
floppy through Word. Always save/copy to your hard disk _first_, work with
that file then copy it back to a floppy when finished. The disk may be
formatted, but the error may have come up if you were trying to save directly
to it.

I'm just curious, myself. Why is this? Now, personally, I would never save
directly to a floppy first because I do not trust them. I always save to my
computer first just so I know I have a copy. Floppy disks can be
tempremental. Is this why you suggest this to MopMan, or are you saying that
you really should not even ever save to a floppy disk from Word? If the
latter, that sounds kind of strange to me. Why is that? Why would you not be
able to save anything to any drive you want? I am just curious. I don't even
use floppy disks anymore.

--
Have a nice day!

~Paul
Express Scripts,
Charting the future of pharmacy

~~~~~~
| |
|c--OD
| _)
| |
|-. |
/ `-# /A
/ /_|..`#.J/
||LJ `m''
ptaylor

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi Paul,

We -- CyberTaz, all the MVPs, and anyone who's worked with Word for a
while -- really mean

DO NOT SAVE DIRECTLY FROM WORD TO A FLOPPY
DO NOT OPEN IN WORD DIRECTLY FROM A FLOPPY

The reason is that Word creates lots of temporary files
(http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=211632), and many of them *must* be in
the same folder as the original document. If the original is on a floppy,
the temp files are there, too.

If there isn't enough room on the disk for everything, Word corrupts the
document. If you forget that there's a document (and all its temp files)
open and you remove the floppy from the drive, Word corrupts the document.
If you sneeze during the wrong phase of the moon, Word corrupts the
document. Besides that, it's slow as molasses...

Some of these problems occur on any removable media, including Zip drives,
CD-RWs, and even USB memory sticks. Better not to tempt fate -- work on the
hard drive only.

 

[Guest]

Can't say it any clearer than Jay did, buth here's one more point to add...
just keep in mind that in the past 25 years:

Hard disks have gone from 5MB to well over 360GB capacity,
Hard disks have gone from <3200 RPM to 7200 RPM,
CPU's from 4.77MHz to >2GHz,
RAM capacity from 640KB to 4GB,

and

floppy drive technology Has _Not_ Changed at all.

Any questions?

Regards |:>)

 

[Doug Robbins]

I believe that processor speeds are nudging 4 gHz. They're at least at 3.80

RAM capacity is up to 8GB

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[CyberTaz]

Sorry, I must have dozed off for an hour... But floppies still haven't
changed.

Regards |:>)

 

[Guest]

Wow! Thanks, folks. That's good to know. I would never have thought Word
would have so many problems with something that seems so common. I've always
saved to the hard drive first (just so I have a copy I know I can trust), but
I'd often then save directly from word to a floppy, zip drive, or more
recently my USB flash drive. I won't do that anymore. I'll copy.

Good point, CyberTaz. Of course, sometimes there is just nowhere to go, and
media becomes obsolete. Look at VHS. That technology stayed pretty much
exactly the same for a long time, and is now virtually completely replaced by
DVD. Look at casette tapes. They stayed pretty much exactly the same for a
long time, and have now been virtually completely replaced by CDs. Believe it
or not, they still make casette tapes, though. LOL.

The same thing is kinda happening to floppy disks. Zip drives, CD-RW, USB
Flash drives, floppy disks are just becoming a thing of the past. Heck,
computers don't even always come with floppy drives as a standard anymore.
Remember back when that would be unheard of?

--
Have a nice day!

~Paul
Express Scripts,
Charting the future of pharmacy

~~~~~~
| |
|c--OD
| _)
| |
|-. |
/ `-# /A
/ /_|..`#.J/
||LJ `m''
ptaylor

 

[Charles Kenyon]

To a lesser extent, the problems with working in Word with floppies apply to
all removable media, especially CDs.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[Guest]

That's good to know. Strange, but good to know. I wonder if it is something
Microsoft could possibly fix in the future.

--
Have a nice day!

~Paul
Express Scripts,
Charting the future of pharmacy

~~~~~~
| |
|c--OD
| _)
| |
|-. |
/ `-# /A
/ /_|..`#.J/
||LJ `m''
ptaylor

 

[Charles Kenyon]

I'm sure they won't (probably can't) fix it for floppies. Fixing for CDs
would also be difficult; I think the problem arises because writing to a CD
is substantially slower than writing to a hard drive. Another possible
problem is that files written to CDs do not really delete, even with CD-RW;
the only way to really get rid of them is to reformat the disk. I've been
told that it is a problem even with flash drives; not sure why, but limited
size comes to mind.
--
Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
This message is posted to a newsgroup. Please post replies
and questions to the newsgroup so that others can learn
from my ignorance and your wisdom.

 

[Amedee Van Gasse]

In <#[email protected]>, Charles Kenyon told us an
interesting story. My reply to this story is at the bottom of this
message.

I'm sure they won't (probably can't) fix it for floppies. Fixing for
CDs would also be difficult; I think the problem arises because
writing to a CD is substantially slower than writing to a hard drive.
Another possible problem is that files written to CDs do not really
delete, even with CD-RW; the only way to really get rid of them is to
reformat the disk. I've been told that it is a problem even with
flash drives; not sure why, but limited size comes to mind.

With flash drives, it's not size that matters ;-)

/Usually/ flash drives don't have this "floppy" problem. However the
flash drives can only be written to a couple tens of thousands times.
(Gargoyle if you want exact numbers)
For normal use this ought to be enough, but we had cutsomers that had a
foxpro database on an usb flash drive. Database = continuous i/o. After
a couple of months or a year or so, we got reports about corrupted
files, which we could only attribute to flash failure.

By the way if we're bragging about hw specs: I only have 1GB RAM, but I
do have 3GHz of 64-bit processing power on my home pc. And an OS that
can make use of all that raw 64-bit horsepower. Groovy!

 

[Guest]

The last time I saved a project to my "a" drive and put in my disc it stated
that the disc was not formatted and I could not open the files saved to that
disc.

 

[JoAnn Paules [MVP]]

Are you asking a question or did you hit Send too soon?

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This error message just indicates that Word can't read the file, probably
because it is corrupted. It is probably corrupted because you tried to open
it from (or save it directly to) a floppy disk.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Guest]

The last time I saved a projectto my 3and 1/2 floppy disk it stated
that my disk has been formated by machintosh and is therefore unable to save

 

[JoAnn Paules [MVP]]

That's not gonna work, is it?

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

~~~~~
How to ask a question
http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375




"(e-mail address removed)"