Floppy formatting question...

alanack · Jul 31, 2003

I've been backing up some stuff lately on a floppy until I figure out a better way of doing it, and I just went to open something from this floppy and it says the disk has not been formatted. I had just opened it a few minutes before, with no problems... is a problem like this what people mean when they say floppies are unreliable? It asks me if I want to format it now, but of course I'm wondering, will this erase the data? I can't afford to lose it. Thanks.

Alan

gnome · Jul 31, 2003

Quote from alanack:

I've been backing up some stuff lately on a floppy until I figure out a better way of doing it, and I just went to open something from this floppy and it says the disk has not been formatted. I had just opened it a few minutes before, with no problems... is a problem like this what people mean when they say floppies are unreliable? It asks me if I want to format it now, but of course I'm wondering, will this erase the data? I can't afford to lose it. Thanks.

Alan

Reboot and try again. If it's going to keep saying that the floppy is not formatted, you have already lost the data.

Do you have a CD-RW or Zip drive to save data upon??

nkhoi · Jul 31, 2003

virus could erase the disk or make computer think the disk is erase, if data is vital try to look it up using diff PC first.

alanack · Jul 31, 2003

I forgot to mention... this probably happened because I pulled the disk in the middle of transferring the data to a program. Does this help explain anything? After rebooting, it still tells me the disk needs formatting. Will formatting at this point DEFINITELY erase the disk? Thanks.

Alan

estrader · Jul 31, 2003

Quote from alanack:

I forgot to mention... this probably happened because I pulled the disk in the middle of transferring the data to a program. Does this help explain anything? After rebooting, it still tells me the disk needs formatting. Will formatting at this point DEFINITELY erase the disk? Thanks.

Alan

Yes, formatting does completely erase the disk. It is like bleaching checks.

Hungry4Knowledg · Jul 31, 2003

If the data are worth a lot to you, you could try one of the (expensive) data recovery services.

alanack · Jul 31, 2003

Quote from Hungry4Knowledg:

If the data are worth a lot to you, you could try one of the (expensive) data recovery services.

Thanks. I was wondering if they could do this. And thanks to everyone else for helping.

w12talon · Jul 31, 2003

Have you thought about using a USB flash memory drive?
Very small, I know people that carry them on their key chains, and they love them.

Something like this: http://www.directron.com/fsx128.html "Data retention time 10 years"

Very affordable, and reliable. 3.5" Floppys are such an UNRELIABLE media.

You just plug it into your usb port and it would show up as the next corresponding driver letter, such as E: in "my computer".
You double click on it, and access it like any other drive. You can write data to it, and also delete it.

mail2smitty · Aug 1, 2003

Could try this:
http://surecool.com/disktest.htm
Never used it myself, but may help...
Smitty

alanack · Aug 1, 2003

I was able to recover the data by going to jufsoft.com, and paying $39.50 for a recovery program called BADCOPY, which worked, no problem. I have learned my lesson. No more floppies, I guess I'll start saving stuff on CD's. Thanks again.

Alan