Help to recovery floppy files

[Nathan Gutman]

Using WinXP SP2. I have a .DOC file on a floppy disk that somehow got
corrupted and can not be accessed. I get the error "disk not formatted".
There are commercial file recovery utilities which cost money and
I can not justify to pay to recover just one file.
What can I do to recover that file from the floppy?
Any free Microsoft utilities?
Thanks,
Nathan

 

[JS]

Have you tried another PC?

JS

 

[Eric P.]

Using WinXP SP2. I have a .DOC file on a floppy disk that somehow got
corrupted and can not be accessed. I get the error "disk not formatted".
There are commercial file recovery utilities which cost money and
I can not justify to pay to recover just one file.
What can I do to recover that file from the floppy?
Any free Microsoft utilities?
Thanks,
Nathan

If you saved the .DOC file on another computer or in another operating
system try to access it on a different computer.
WinXP had showed problems with perfectly reliable floppy drives.
Even in a dual boot situation where the floppy was readable in the other
O/S.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Using WinXP SP2. I have a .DOC file on a floppy disk that somehow got
corrupted and can not be accessed. I get the error "disk not formatted".

Is this a diskette which had been created on another computer, pruning
an earlier version of Windows? If so, you are almost certainly running
into the media descriptor byte problem described here:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=140060

The solution is to format another diskette on your computer, then take
it and the original to a computer running Windows 9X, and copy the
original to the newly formatted one. You will then be able to read the
copied diskette on your computer.

 

[Nathan Gutman]

Have you tried another PC?

JS

Yes, I did.

 

[Nathan Gutman]

Is this a diskette which had been created on another computer, pruning
an earlier version of Windows? If so, you are almost certainly running
into the media descriptor byte problem described here:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=140060

The solution is to format another diskette on your computer, then take
it and the original to a computer running Windows 9X, and copy the
original to the newly formatted one. You will then be able to read the
copied diskette on your computer.

Thank you, it worked! Also, I was amazed that I could see and open the
file on the floppy on a computer running Ubuntu.
Thanks again,
Nathan

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thank you, it worked! Also, I was amazed that I could see and open the
file on the floppy on a computer running Ubuntu.

You're welcome. Glad to help.

This used to be a fairly common problem, but these days, as we get
farther and farther from computers still running Windows 9x, and as
fewer and fewer computers even have floppy drives, we don't see it as
much as we used to.

 

[JS]

You're correct, I totally forgot about that also.

JS

 

[Bill in Co.]

You're welcome. Glad to help.

This used to be a fairly common problem, but these days, as we get
farther and farther from computers still running Windows 9x, and as
fewer and fewer computers even have floppy drives, we don't see it as
much as we used to.

Which is sometimes a problem. I'm thinking of some BIOS updaters, and
also in using BootItNG (without using a CD, which seems a bit overkill
. So I elected to get a floppy drive on this newer Dell computer too,
and it HAS come in handy.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:

Which is sometimes a problem. I'm thinking of some BIOS updaters, and
also in using BootItNG (without using a CD, which seems a bit overkill
. So I elected to get a floppy drive on this newer Dell computer too,
and it HAS come in handy.

I have my computers custom-built, and for the extra $10 or so that a
floppy drive costs, I *always* get one (except on my laptop). I use
mine extremely seldom, but I'm happier knowing that it's there if I
need it.