3.5" Floppy Disks

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by no-sweat, Aug 11, 2017.

  1. no-sweat

    no-sweat Private E-2

    Hi all!

    I recently purchased an external 3.5" floppy disk to access around 30 ~17 year old floppy disks I found using Windows 10. Oddly enough, every single one of the disks are blank.

    So assuming past me wasn't an idiot thatformatted them all, is there any chance the drive I bought just doesn't read them correctly? I understand floppies don't last forever but having all 30+ be blank is a bit much. I WAS able to access a few 13 year old other disks I found that were not stored with the other 30+

    Here's some info on the drive:
    3.5" USB External Floppy Disk Drive Portable 1.44 MB FDD for PC Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10
    Media: High Density (2HD) OR Normal Density (2DD)

    Disks that show no files:
    Fujifilm MF2HD
    TDK MF-2HD IBM
    Maxwell MF2HD IBM

    Disks that did work:
    Imation 2HD IBM
    Fujifilm 2HD IBM
    TDK MF-2HD IBM

    Think I should try another drive? Can I test these somehow, software? Or are these a loss? It's strange :(

    Thanks
     
    no-sweat, Aug 11, 2017
    #1
  2. Just Playin

    Just Playin MajorGeek

    Try it on a different PC.

    Perhaps they were wiped by an external magnetic force. The ones stored separately would be unaffected.
     
    Just Playin, Aug 11, 2017
    #2
  3. Digerati

    Digerati Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Then the drive is fine.
     
    Digerati, Aug 11, 2017
    #3
  4. plodr

    plodr MajorGeek Super Extraordinaire Moderator Staff Member

    I own three USB external floppy drives. (I had a hard time moving my husband from floppies to USB stick). One or two are TEAC brand and the other is a no-name that only says Photo Floppy when I turn it over.
    I never had a problem with any of them reading floppy disks. From time to time a floppy would go bad. Since he always had 2 floppies with the same information, we threw out the bad one and replaced it with another copy.

    Granted, we don't run Win 10. The devices were used in Win 2K, XP and 7.

    Here someone having trouble with a TEAC in Win 10
    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...g/f1aa26e7-3f08-44e3-b3ce-d0cca0588465?auth=1
     
    plodr, Aug 12, 2017
    #4

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