Help! Floppy Drive Not Functioning

O

OlIv0rIolI

Gawd
Joined
Dec 2, 2005
Messages
634
Please help, my floppy drive is acting weird, my floppy disk contains vital information for college applications! and I can't acess it. I am running on winxp professional and a very good computer.

the floppy disk was working fine when I opened it to access the MSword files on it. After I edited some of the word files and saved it on disk, I took it out. Later when I reinserted the diskette, the drive won't open in My Computers. it saids that the disk needs to be formatted!!!. I clicked no. Next i opened MSword and tried to used "open file" tab. it saids "the floppy disk in drive A: is not formatted or has been formatted for a Macintosh" and " the disk data is not recognized. it may not be formatted." WTF

I tried other older diskette, some of them work and some of them don't. I tried a empty disk and it works fine. I then tried the file disk on another computer running winxp and the same thing happened.

I really need the info on this disk and they are not stored anywhere else, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

oh and p.s. floppy sux. If it weren't for some of the older computers I had to deal with, I would never use floppy.
 
Thanks for making the topic nice and easy to read ;)

Sounds like you've got a bad header (or whatever they're called, I haven't used floppies in ages). The only way to fix it is a full format. Sorry dude, you're SOL.

I trust you had a duplicate copy on another machine, right?
 
Sorry for your loss.

This is why cd's and flash drives were invented though.
 
Think the floppys toast, sorry.
You did have another copy of the file on another PC, right?
 
yep, that data is not coming back. That's why I hate floppies--even if you disregard the fact that they are slow, small in capacity, and clunky to use, they are still terribly unreliable. I can't even tell you how many floppys I've had decide to just magically lose their data. A floppy should never ever ever be used as the sole medium of storing important data. That being said, I trust you have a backup somewhere? Since the data fit onto a single floppy that means it surely is small enough to have it tucked away on your hard drive somewhere too.
 
Rule #1 of "vital data": Never trust it to a single storage location.

Rule #1 of life in general: Floppies are about as reliable as Enzyte.
 
One person found that his floppy wouldn't work reliably because a fan controller induced interference into its data cable, and another person found that this cable had to be moved away from the donuts of the CPU voltage regulator.

If you want to completely rule out hardware problems, make a boot floppy and get a copy AnaDisk (ANAD204, ANAD207), a program that bypasses the BIOS and handles the floppy controller hardware directly. Also if you have a copy of Gibson Software's SpinRite, it can sometimes recover data from floppies.
 
The drive you have could also be slightly slower than the drive you formatted the floppy in (That does cause issues), can you try this disk in some other computers?
 
TheMostWantedPolishTwin said:
I don't understand why people insist on using floppies...
Click to expand...

OlIv0rIolI said:
oh and p.s. floppy sux. If it weren't for some of the older computers I had to deal with, I would never use floppy.
Click to expand...


my guess, cause he has to, there are still a few no USB computers floating round(its sad but true)

that and raid controlers are always on floppys, why motherboard makers cant use CDs or flashdrives for this is byond me, hell that would be a great add on sales pitch
 
thanx for all the replies in such a short time. I could get another backup, but its going to be a great hassle and its gonna take a week to recover.

I will try to get another floppy drive and see if it solves the problem. Afterwards I will either burn all my floppys or use them for rifle practice. ;) :p that is if no one has a better idea on how to vent out my frustration
 
Renswic said:
that and raid controlers are always on floppys, why motherboard makers cant use CDs or flashdrives for this is byond me, hell that would be a great add on sales pitch
Click to expand...

raid drivers always come on floppies because a certain poplular operating system can only take drivers during setup off of a floppy, because it uses an installer originally written over 10 years ago that doesn't support CD-ROMS or USB devices ;)
 
Eva_Unit_0 said:
raid drivers always come on floppies because a certain poplular operating system can only take drivers during setup off of a floppy, because it uses an installer originally written over 10 years ago that doesn't support CD-ROMS or USB devices ;)
Click to expand...

F6...F6...F6...F6...F6...F6 FUCK!!!! Motherfuckingoddamn F-LOCK!!!!

:D
 
OregonLAN said:
F6...F6...F6...F6...F6...F6 FUCK!!!! Motherfuckingoddamn F-LOCK!!!!

:D
Click to expand...
*throws logitech keyboard up in the air and hits it with a baseball bat*

My last keyboard should thank its lucky stars that Comp USA allowed me to return it, otherwise thats EXACTY what would have happened to it :D

Seriously, who in their right mind thought that the "F-Lock" function (that only works once your in windows on some keyboards) was a good idea?
 
OregonLAN said:
F6...F6...F6...F6...F6...F6 FUCK!!!! Motherfuckingoddamn F-LOCK!!!!

:D
Click to expand...

God that sounds familar. Oh wait, that was me yesterday trying to install XP on my new hard drive. Fucking MS Natural 4000 keyboard. :D


Anyhow on topic, I've had floppies suddenly become unreadable although they'd never been taken out of the drive. I remember 5.25" floppies from back in the day. Those suckers could take a beating and still spit out my data. I've never had good luck with 3.5" floppies lasting more than a week with any given data. However, my college won't allow you to use CD's or USB devices in the library computers so we were forced to use a floppy if we needed to print something off between classes. According to my wife though, that's changed now, they'll allow you use CDs now.

Ryan
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top