# Floppy wont read



## Double Helix (Mar 21, 2010)

Ok so i don't know where to place this thread so i will start in storage 

I have floppy from a 2000 machine, and i need to read from them on a XP SP3...i can see where it says the file names but when i click on them they all say do you want to format floppy ?

View img

Any idea guys? thanks


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## deanj20 (Mar 21, 2010)

Weird. Can you right click the file and choose a program to "Open With"?

Or you could try copying the files over to the hd via command prompt. 

Go to Start-->Run and type in 'cmd' and hit <enter>

Then, in the shell, type 'copy B:\* C:\Temp' ('Temp' being the name of the directory you wish to copy the files to.)

What kind of files are they? And how old is the floppy?

Sounds to me like the floppy is bad - but why then are you able to see the files on the floppy?

Try the suggestion above and post back.


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## Double Helix (Mar 21, 2010)

Hi, thank you for responding back.

OK i did your suggestion and this is what i got (img below)

I made a file names Temp in the C drive and even just tried dumping the files in C and nothing.

I belive the files are Excel, PDF and other Word docs, but i have 15 of them and they all do the same thing


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## deanj20 (Mar 21, 2010)

Hmmm. 

Well, I'm convinced the floppy is bad. How important is it that you save these documents? Do you have a copy of them anywhere else? People haven't backed things up to floppy in over ten years! 

Of course, it's possible that the drive isn't working right too. Have you tried another disk in the drive? Or how about trying your disk in another drive? 

If the info on the disk isn't all that vital, I would chunk it, mourn your losses and learn a valuable lesson - if anything is *that* important, you should have three *dependable* copies backed up. You can use online storage, external harddrives, extra internal harddrives, CDs, DVDs, flash drives, etc etc etc. There's really no good reason to back anything up to floppy anymore. 

Remember - In God We Trust. Everything else, we back up!


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## Double Helix (Mar 21, 2010)

It's been 10 years since I used them for backup, thought I'd pull them from the closet and see what's on them, the files are important for tax reasons ( gulp )

But I tried using a new floppy and it worked, I had to do what it wanted such as format and it wrks like a charm, but the other ones I hv it would delete the info.

Do you think bc it was a Windows 2000 machine that stored all those and I hv a XP, would it read if it was a 2000 ? 

" in god we trust..everything else we back up..lol awesome !


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## funkysnair (Mar 21, 2010)

floppy, last time i used one of them was after a heavy night on the alcohol


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## deanj20 (Mar 21, 2010)

> Do you think bc it was a Windows 2000 machine that stored all those and I hv a XP, would it read if it was a 2000 ?



No. It doesn't matter. Floppy disks have a FAT file system, regardless of what OS they are formatted with.



> " in god we trust..everything else we back up..lol awesome !



Yeah- I saw that in someone's signature the other day. Thought it was fitting. 

[edit]


> floppy, last time i used one of them was after a heavy night on the alcohol



OOOooohhhh! Comedy gold!


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## johnb35 (Mar 21, 2010)

Floppies go bad after some time even if they aren't used.  They are very unreliable.  I think out of the last 10 pack of floppies I bought only 7 or so was actually good.


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## Double Helix (Mar 21, 2010)

johnb35 said:


> Floppies go bad after some time even if they aren't used.  They are very unreliable.  I think out of the last 10 pack of floppies I bought only 7 or so was actually good.



hmmm....true, the part that sucks is i can click onto the drive and see the names but cant click on them unless i format them.


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## Double Helix (Mar 21, 2010)

deanj20 said:


> No. It doesn't matter. Floppy disks have a FAT file system, regardless of what OS they are formatted with.
> 
> 
> good to know bc i was going to set up ( blowing dust off CD ) windows 2000.
> ...


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## deanj20 (Mar 21, 2010)

"*" is a wildcard character.
from ahuka.com


> * = matches up with any combination of allowable characters


So basically you're copying all files in the B:\ directory to the directory C:\Temp.


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## johnb35 (Mar 21, 2010)

Should be "A" instead of "B" since floppy drive is labeled A.  That command should copy everything on the floppy to the temp directory on your c drive.


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## deanj20 (Mar 21, 2010)

johnb35,

In the first post, there is an image of the error message he is getting when he tries to click on the file icons in _drive B_, so I assume that it is drive B on his particular setup. 





However, that is odd. Double Helix, do you have two floppy drives installed? Or what drive is letter A assigned to?


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## johnb35 (Mar 22, 2010)

Very seldom is the floppy drive labeled B unless there is a duplicate floppy drive.  However, I've seen when doing a fresh install of XP that 2 floppy drives do show up when in fact there is only 1.


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## Double Helix (Mar 23, 2010)

johnb35 said:


> Very seldom is the floppy drive labeled B unless there is a duplicate floppy drive.  However, I've seen when doing a fresh install of XP that 2 floppy drives do show up when in fact there is only 1.



When i built my computer i didn't place any Floppy drives in it, just DVD and CD, but in " My Computers " it always shows one ( but i have never had one " but it still shows it.

I went into BIOS and disabled it...reasoning being...when i tried to install a Virtual boot ( windows 2000 on my XP ) it asked me to insert the SCSI drivers in Floppy section A, but i had a USB floppy and it was labeled B which windows didn't open, so i disabled the A and it looked in B...

FYI i had a iomega unit that i needed info off and it wasn't designed for anything past 2000 ( that's why i had to do virtual boot.


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## Double Helix (Mar 23, 2010)

deanj20 said:


> "*" is a wildcard character.
> from ahuka.com
> 
> So basically you're copying all files in the B:\ directory to the directory C:\Temp.



Ah i see....learn something new everyday !

BTW thank you for your ongoing help with this! and to others as well


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## Double Helix (Apr 9, 2010)

UPDATE

Ok i got the info off the floppy....it was the external rive i was using, it was somehow not reading the old floppy’s but new ones, so i bought a new one and it worked.

Never know till you try !


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