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RJW
11-30-2005, 10:01 PM
I have been entering data on a disc daily, and all of a sudden I could not open the disc. Had a message that the disc was not formated. But if I format it I will lose all the data on the disc. Clicking on the properties indicates the disc is completely full with 0 bytes of unused space, and a completely blue disc is shown in the illustration with 0 bytes of used space. Is there some way I can open this disc or transfer the data to a Zip drive or CD? I copied the floppy to another floppy and all I end up with is another full unreadable floppy. Any suggestions out there?

Paul Komski
12-01-2005, 03:20 AM
Floppies are notoriously capricious and slow; consider getting yourself a USB Flash/Pen/Thumbdrive for the future.

GDB
Scan the floppy with GetDataBack for FAT from www.runtime.org. Go through the various screens until any recoverable files/folders are listed. You can only recover files one by one for free by RClicking on it and choosing Open or Open With. For OpenWith Notepad will open a great many different file formats that be required - as can any hex editor.

WinHex
Tools >> Open Disk and select the A: drive from the list of logical drives using WinHex from http://www.x-ways.net/ works slightly differently and may be better or worse. You toggle the Directory icon beside the Access DropDown List to see its Directory tree and then RClick on one (or many selected) files and choose the Recover Option.

I am sure there are other DIY recovery tools that will do what you want (if there are not too many bad sectors on the drive) but these two have been very successful for me.

Sylvander
12-03-2005, 06:57 AM
1. How to make a free “Smart Boot Manager” floppy
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41498
This makes it easier to boot a chosen drive [particularly the one holding the EBCD].

2. How to make a free EBCD bootable CD
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41485
This has a number of useful utilities included including "Image" [for DOS, by Terabyte] & "File Manager", and also an "Un-erase" program that's quite simple to use.
To test it out I tried "deleting" a ".jpg" file holding a screen snapshot.
Booted from the EBCD, ran the Un-erase program, navigated to the file.
It said the chances of successful recovery were "good". Recovered it, rebooted back into Windows. Sure enough, there was the file, but with a slightly different name and in a "Recycled" folder on C:
Opened the file and the image was corrupted! Only half of it was unchanged and the other half completely gone and the sections between had blocks of non-image.
I assume that some of the original cluster locations of the file had been overwritten, and that was in a very short time.
Hopefully nothing like this will have happened to your floppy contents.

ski
12-03-2005, 10:13 AM
See if the floppy works on another system. If not, then the floppy may be bad.

If it works ok on another system, and it's recognized in Windows on your system, then save your data to another type of media that works on your system.
Next, make sure its cables are securely and correctly connected.
If that's ok, then connect a different power lead to it.
If no luck, then install a different known working data cable.
If still no good, then the drive may need a cleaning.

If nothing works, and the FD is relatively new, then look around for an older unit. I know that sounds crazy, but the newer FD's are notorious for not being able to read floppies.