current "last best hope" for old floppy data recovery?

  • Thread starter Thread starter C G Kolar
  • Start date Start date
C

C G Kolar

Hi everyone. When I moved to a new department I officially became
responsible for all of their historical data: which it turns out is
mainly stored in a file cabinet full of a few hundred 3.5" DOS floppy
disks dating back as far as 1988. In the course trying to copy
everything to our file server I am finding that about 20% of the disks
are unreadable. By unreadable I mean that the computer is not
recognizing the disk as being formatted, not that it is experiencing
bad sector read errors when trying to copy.

I have not had to do this sort of thing in a long while, so I was
wondering if anyone can recommend a good floppy data recovery tool
given that they might just have one pass left in them? A good
Win-based tool would be welcome, but if I absolutely had to I could
give it a try using gnu/linux tools.

Also, many of the disks are not high but double density it was also
suggested that some of those really old disks should be read by an old
double density drive as for various -bios-related reasons modern
drives are not good at picking up data on old DD disks -- is that true
and should I start looking on ebay? Thanks much everyone.

--chris
 
C said:
Hi everyone. When I moved to a new department I officially became
responsible for all of their historical data: which it turns out is
mainly stored in a file cabinet full of a few hundred 3.5" DOS floppy
disks dating back as far as 1988. In the course trying to copy
everything to our file server I am finding that about 20% of the disks
are unreadable. By unreadable I mean that the computer is not
recognizing the disk as being formatted, not that it is experiencing
bad sector read errors when trying to copy.

I have not had to do this sort of thing in a long while, so I was
wondering if anyone can recommend a good floppy data recovery tool
given that they might just have one pass left in them? A good
Win-based tool would be welcome, but if I absolutely had to I could
give it a try using gnu/linux tools.

Also, many of the disks are not high but double density it was also
suggested that some of those really old disks should be read by an old
double density drive as for various -bios-related reasons modern
drives are not good at picking up data on old DD disks -- is that true
and should I start looking on ebay? Thanks much everyone.

--chris
Click to expand...

I would certainly try several drives by several different manufacturers;
they can vary slightly in adjustment and sensitivity. Whether it would
be worthwhile to find an old pre-HD drive seems questionable to me --
you're not too likely to find one in good condition.
 
Previously C G Kolar said:
Hi everyone. When I moved to a new department I officially became
responsible for all of their historical data: which it turns out is
mainly stored in a file cabinet full of a few hundred 3.5" DOS floppy
disks dating back as far as 1988. In the course trying to copy
everything to our file server I am finding that about 20% of the disks
are unreadable. By unreadable I mean that the computer is not
recognizing the disk as being formatted, not that it is experiencing
bad sector read errors when trying to copy.
Click to expand...
I have not had to do this sort of thing in a long while, so I was
wondering if anyone can recommend a good floppy data recovery tool
given that they might just have one pass left in them? A good
Win-based tool would be welcome, but if I absolutely had to I could
give it a try using gnu/linux tools.
Click to expand...
Also, many of the disks are not high but double density it was also
suggested that some of those really old disks should be read by an old
double density drive as for various -bios-related reasons modern
drives are not good at picking up data on old DD disks -- is that true
and should I start looking on ebay? Thanks much everyone.
Click to expand...

This sounds like a case for professional data recovery. Floppies are
one of the few remaininge media that have significant issues with the
signal going weaker, without it going necessarily close or below the
noise level. With better amplifiers and reading heads many of the
unreadable floppies should still be readable. My guess here is that
the unreadable ones just have read errors in areas the OS checks in
order to find out whether the floppy is readable.

One thing before you spend a lot of money: VGA-copy is a
dos disk copy programm that will allow you an assessment
of whether a floppy is unreadable or just in some strange format.
In addition its "retry"-counter can be set up to 99, which sometimes
is enough to recover bad sectors. It has been a long time simce
I sued it, no idea where you can find it. If I remember correctly
it is fully functional shareware.

As to the DD/HD issue, it only exists in 5.25" floppies, since there
the DD floppies had 40 tracks, while the HD ones has 80 tracks
and these tracks consequentially where slimmer. It is also mostly
an issue when writing, not when reading. I know of no such
issue with 3.5" disks and I have recently converted all my old
3.5" DD floppies (Atari ST) to disk-images.

Arno
 
Arno Wagner said:
This sounds like a case for professional data recovery. Floppies are
one of the few remaininge media that have significant issues with the
signal going weaker, without it going necessarily close or below the
noise level. With better amplifiers and reading heads many of the
unreadable floppies should still be readable. My guess here is that
the unreadable ones just have read errors in areas the OS checks in
order to find out whether the floppy is readable.

One thing before you spend a lot of money: VGA-copy is a
dos disk copy programm that will allow you an assessment
of whether a floppy is unreadable or just in some strange format.
In addition its "retry"-counter can be set up to 99, which sometimes
is enough to recover bad sectors. It has been a long time simce
I sued it, no idea where you can find it. If I remember correctly
it is fully functional shareware.
Click to expand...

Thanks Arno. I will give them another look, I appreciate your
background information on how floppies fail. I did find a copy of the
program that you mentioned at

http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/18830.asp

Download is in German, there is an english .exe that will change the
language for someone like me.
As to the DD/HD issue, it only exists in 5.25" floppies, since there
the DD floppies had 40 tracks, while the HD ones has 80 tracks
and these tracks consequentially where slimmer. It is also mostly
an issue when writing, not when reading. I know of no such
issue with 3.5" disks and I have recently converted all my old
3.5" DD floppies (Atari ST) to disk-images.
Click to expand...

That is good to hear, at least I will save myself some time not trying
to follow up on this aspect of the problem. I appreciate your follow
up post.

--chris
 
Thanks Arno. I will give them another look, I appreciate your
background information on how floppies fail. I did find a copy of the
program that you mentioned at
Click to expand...
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/18830.asp
Click to expand...

Another program worth trying is RESQFLPY.EXE, a free DOS program
easily found on the Web. If the disk can't be read by the operating
system because of damage to the system areas, RESQFLPY can copy the data
to an image file, then back to a good floppy which can be read by the OS.
 
Keep in mind that Windows XP doesn't support DD disks anymore. You have to
use older OS.
 
Keep in mind that Windows XP doesn't support DD disks anymore. You have to
use older OS.
Click to expand...

Which leads me to wonder -- what about just booting from a DOS floppy?
(Perhaps that would mean having a FAT16 partition in part of the HDD
that DOS can see too, in order to get much useful work done with it?)

Cheers, Phred.
 
C G Kolar said:
Hi everyone. When I moved to a new department I officially became
responsible for all of their historical data: which it turns out is
mainly stored in a file cabinet full of a few hundred 3.5" DOS floppy
disks dating back as far as 1988. In the course trying to copy
everything to our file server I am finding that about 20% of the disks
are unreadable. By unreadable I mean that the computer is not
recognizing the disk as being formatted, not that it is experiencing
bad sector read errors when trying to copy.

I have not had to do this sort of thing in a long while, so I was
wondering if anyone can recommend a good floppy data recovery tool
given that they might just have one pass left in them? A good
Win-based tool would be welcome, but if I absolutely had to I could
give it a try using gnu/linux tools.
Click to expand...

There is a substantial difference in how the OS accesses floppies in the
following three OS families: NT based (NT4, W2K, XP), Win 9x/ME, and DOS. Win
9x/ME may be able to read a marginal floppy that XP can't read, and plain DOS
(MS-DOS 7.x before loading Win 9x/ME are plain DOS, for that matter) may read
what Windows 9x/ME can't. Therefore, floppy recovery should preferably be
conducted under DOS. Which is the reason for which ResQfloppy is a DOS program.
Also, many of the disks are not high but double density it was also
suggested that some of those really old disks should be read by an old
double density drive as for various -bios-related reasons modern
drives are not good at picking up data on old DD disks -- is that true
and should I start looking on ebay? Thanks much everyone.
Click to expand...

Stiffies, as 3.5" disks are sometimes called, are either 720 K or 1.4 Mb in
capacity and you can easily tell the one from the other by the square holes (one
has the write-protect tab). 1.4 Mb have two holes, one on each side, those that
have only one hole are 720 Kb. The OS identifies automatically which is which
by reading the boot sector, on insertion. When the OS can't tell, then the boot
sector is either corrupt, or unreadable. You can then tell which is which
simply by the hole/s.

Modern floppy drives have no problem reading both formats. If there is a
problem then the cause is elsewhere (unreadable BPB from boot sector).

A free floppy recovery tool is available from www.resq.co.il/iv_tools.php. Read
the "readme" file (in the self extract package) before starting work.

Recover your floppies on a Windows 9x PC, started to MS-DOS. If you have no
such PC, then take the FreeDOS boot floppy maker, from the same page as
ResQfloppy, and use it to boot the computer into DOS mode. The FreeDOS floppy
will create a RAM disk on startup that should suffice for all the utilities as
well as the floppy image file(s).

If you run with RAMdrive, then don't forget to copy command.com to it and set
the "comspec" as follows: SET COMSPEC=[d]:\COMMAND.COM where [d] is the letter
assigned to the RAMdrive. Another tip: Copy FORMAT.COM too to the RAM drive,
you'll need it.

Lastly and most important: Make sure the write-protect tab of floppies is in
the write-protect position before inserting the floppy into the drive. All it
takes to render a floppy unreadable is to insert it after the wrong one. The
drive may write to it cached data! I wouldn't be surprised if this is how you
lost access to part of those floppies.

Regards, Zvi
 
Donald G. Davis said:
Another program worth trying is RESQFLPY.EXE, a free DOS program
easily found on the Web. If the disk can't be read by the operating
system because of damage to the system areas, RESQFLPY can copy the data
to an image file, then back to a good floppy which can be read by the OS.
Click to expand...

But will still be unreadable because of the previously 'damaged' and now
missing 'system areas'.
 
Folkert Rienstra said:
But will still be unreadable because of the previously 'damaged' and now
missing 'system areas'.
Click to expand...

Covered in the readme file, in the ResQfloppy page. The principles involved
with recovery of data from floppies is exactly the same as from hard drives:
Clone everything you can from the bad drive, then work on the clone and fix
what's needed. ResQfloppy is actually the cloning component. For the rest,
Read the Fine Document. ;)
 
Alexander Grigoriev said:
Keep in mind that Windows XP doesn't support DD disks anymore. You have to
use older OS.
Click to expand...

That is an Aha! bit of news. Thanks Alexander.
 
Zvi Netiv said:
A free floppy recovery tool is available from www.resq.co.il/iv_tools.php. Read
the "readme" file (in the self extract package) before starting work.

Recover your floppies on a Windows 9x PC, started to MS-DOS. If you have no
such PC, then take the FreeDOS boot floppy maker, from the same page as
ResQfloppy, and use it to boot the computer into DOS mode. The FreeDOS floppy
will create a RAM disk on startup that should suffice for all the utilities as
well as the floppy image file(s).

If you run with RAMdrive, then don't forget to copy command.com to it and set
the "comspec" as follows: SET COMSPEC=[d]:\COMMAND.COM where [d] is the letter
assigned to the RAMdrive. Another tip: Copy FORMAT.COM too to the RAM drive,
you'll need it.
Click to expand...

[....]

Thanks Zvi for all of the information that you have posted. I am
going to give your tools a try and see if I have any luck with
recovery. I'll post a followup to this thread once I have some
experiences to report.

Cheers,

--chris
 
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