Floppy problem

Would like some comments on this problem - My wife works for a local College, she has several 3.5 floppies she uses for various tasks, most of these floppies were made back (maybe 2 yrs. ago) on a Win. 98 machine, they (the College) have since changed to Win. 2000, recently she tried to gain access to one of these floppies and got a message stating that either the disc was not formatted or had been created on a Mac, neither is true, she called the IT department, they looked into the problem and told her that because the disc had been created on a Win. 98 machine it could NOT be read on a Win. 2000 Machine, I find this hard to believe, any comments or thoughts would be appericated - I have a Win. 98SE machine here at home and am thinking of having her bring all the floppies home and I will burn them onto a CD - hopefully the CD can be read by the Win. 2000 computer - THANKS

 

I have ran into this same problem several times, although for me it occurs more frequently in XP than 2000. Some machines, but not all, will refuse to read a floppy formatted with Win98. If the information/data on the floppies is important, then I would recommend downloading a program that makes an image of the disk ( CopyStar is the one that I use, and it will work fine on Win98 or 2000 ), make an image, and have your wife format the floppies to be used on her Win2000 machine, bring them home and write the images to the floppies. After the images are written on a Win2000 formatted floppy you shouldn't have any problems. Just do a Google search for CopyStar and you shouldn't have any problems. If you have any problems, post with a reply and I will be glad to help

 

Another way is to copy them to a USB jumpdrive and take that with you. Better still than a CD, IMHO.

For W98SE PC's, you may have to download a USB jumpdrive driver from the Net. I purchased a Lexar 256mb JumpDrive and the instructions gave a link to a site to download the driver. Did so and it works like a charm. Just make sure that the college PC's have easy access to the USB ports. Latest PC's have USB ports at the front. Older PC's have them at the back, and not so accessible. USB Jumpdrives are a lot more convenient, easier to use, easier to carry, and idiotproof than floppies and CD's, IMHO. Bazza
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I've run into this problem with the kids school disks. Some I was able to read after running chkdsk /f.

 

Thanks for the replys everybody, right now IT still has the floppies and she can't get them back, God knows what they are doing with them, if she can get them back I will do as suggested and let you all know the results -

 

Quick update, the IT Dept. managed to open the problem disc, they returned it to my wife - she was not told what they did so this is as far as I can go with it, I learned something from all this and I guess that is the purpose of this forum - THANKS to all who helped

 

Glad you got it solved, now quickly copy them up to a dedicated folder on your hard drive so you have another copy, NOT on a floppy. Bazza

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Big Bazza, or anyone handling these threads, I have this issue with my countless old floppies which contain a LOT of data thats very sentimental & precious to me.

I was running 98 on one machine, then later XP when I made these floppies, so they are a mix. But the ones I made with the 98 cannot be read by my Win 2000 Pro machine now, & it only asks me if I want to format these disks, which, of course, only erases them entirely..

I have no other computer to use, so whatever can be done needs to be done just on this machine, if at all.

Any help here?

 

Get an evaluation program of BadCopy & see if that will recover them. Full cost if it works is around $40.

 

I havent reformatted any of them though, Hipster. I just want to be able to read them again on my win 2000 pro 'puter...Is there any trick, or free program I could use to be able to do this? I cant open any of them, as it is.

 

You'll have to look through these. There are a few freeware ones listed. Don't know how good they are.

If they are no good try a google search for freeware floppy recovery.

 

You could find, if they are old, that they have mould on them.
Try a diskette cleaning program as a last resort.
Move the metal bit, by hand, to the right to reveal the innards of the diskette, on the non label side, and hold it open.

Get a screwdriver, or something that fits the rectangular hole in the centre and turn the metal circular bit slowly and check for mould, scratches, etc.

Take a sample of your floppies, if they are all OK, then cleaning the drive is next, followed by the earlier recommendations. Bazza