Need files off a 5 1/4 Floppy

I have two 5 1/4 inch floppies that I need to read files from for a project at work. The floppies date back to 1996. They are labeled as 2S 2D 360KB.

I picked up a used 5 1/4 inch drive and cable from a local recycler. Chinon FR 506.

Mounted it into an old PIII 746 MHz, 512MB, running XP Pro 2003, SP3.

I used the cable they gave me with the drive, plugged into the mobo, with the edge connector with the twisted wire pair connected to the drive. No other devices are on the cable.

BIOS is set to recognize a 5 1/4 360KB floppy. (higher setting returned an error)

When I boot, the system recognizes the drive. When I open "My Computer" the drive is there. When I check Device Manager there are no errors, and the drive and driver (generic floppy driver dated 2001) shows as OK.

When I put a disk in, the drive light is on, and the disk spins.

When I try to read the disk, I get an error message saying the "The disk is not formatted, Would you like to format?"

Tried to use "Recuva" file recovery software, and it recognizes the drive, but says it is "not ready". Tried several other free recovery programs, but they don't even see the drive.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as this is some critical info.

thanks,
John

 

Plodr may be right. Floppies degrade over time much like cassettes do as they use very similar magnetic medium. Cassettes are much less fragile and less influenced by the environment, but I have floppy disks (the small 3.5") from just over 2 years ago that have already degraded. So there is a REAL good chance that the data is gone. If the data hasn't been needed for the past 13 years, I can't imagine that it is too important. But what do I know.... anyway.... try using one of these:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/DiskDigger_d6132.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Encopy_d5367.html (personally, I have never had this program ever do anything, but it might work for you)
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Ultimate_Data_Recovery_d5336.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Disktest_PRO_d2368.html (says it is designed for 3.5" floppies but it should work with all floppies)

I was thinking, the floppies are probably formatted in a file system unknown to Windows. Windows XP and Windows 2000 can read FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS file systems. If the floppies you have are not one of these formats, you cannot read them directly using Windows Explorer. This is why you're getting the "disk is not formatted" error. It's not necessarily that the disk isn't formatted, but it's using a file system unreadable by normal Windows procedures, and is therefore considered 'un-formatted'. If you can find out what type of file system the floppies were formatted with, and/or what PC the were orginally used with, then we may be able to find out how to read 'em.

Good luck!
:-D

 

Thanks very much for the suggestions!

I'll try the links provided by dlb today, and if that does not work, I'll try loading a spare drive with Win 95.

The files run in a control system simulator used at an auto factory. Very old stuff, but still working! We had to load a laptop with Win98SE in order to get the program editor to run. Now, if we can just read these two disks, we'll have files to Edit.

I appreciate your help.

 

It couuld be a PCM format.
I am not sure though.
Does anyone know of a PCM editor app? This stuff that jlapolla is playing with is actually something for a programmable logic controller. The information on it is kind of vital for the completion of a project so any help anyone can give us would be greatly appreciated.