formatting floppy discs

  • Thread starter Thread starter tony
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tony

I have been trying to open a floppy disc which was last
worked on in2001, and not on my current machine.
e.machine.
I'm on windows xp home. Bit of a beginner. Machine tells
me it does not have the capacity to open the disc but i'm
desperate to get at the infomation on it. Whats the
solution. Also, I have been unable to format blank discs.
Messages like "this disc cannot be formatted"
HELP!
 
A three years old disk may have degraded. Also eMachines
may not have the BEST parts and floppy drives do not seem to
be made with the highest standards. And XP can have
problems with floppies.

Try the floppy in some other machines, perhaps running W98,
and see if you can read it. If so, copy it to a couple of
new disks.


| I have been trying to open a floppy disc which was last
| worked on in2001, and not on my current machine.
| e.machine.
| I'm on windows xp home. Bit of a beginner. Machine tells
| me it does not have the capacity to open the disc but i'm
| desperate to get at the infomation on it. Whats the
| solution. Also, I have been unable to format blank discs.
| Messages like "this disc cannot be formatted"
| HELP!
 
I have been trying to open a floppy disc which was last
worked on in2001, and not on my current machine.
e.machine.
I'm on windows xp home. Bit of a beginner. Machine tells
me it does not have the capacity to open the disc but i'm
desperate to get at the infomation on it. Whats the
solution. Also, I have been unable to format blank discs.
Messages like "this disc cannot be formatted"
HELP!
Click to expand...

Tony, while it's true that the floppy disk with your data may have degraded
over time, I wouldn't give up hope of using it yet.

I'm concerned about the other thing that you mention... If the floppy drive
you're currently using is incapable of formatting a disk, there is probably
something wrong with it. It's possible that a working floppy drive would be
able to access your data.

If your computer is still under warranty, you should contact tech support
about this so that the drive can be replaced.

Otherwise, new floppy drives are very inexpensive. If you take this route,
after the drive is installed make sure that it can read and write to a
floppy. That it can format a disk. *Important*: Also test that it can
create a boot disk that is capable of booting the system.

This last item - creating a boot disk - requires the drive to access a
special portion of the floppy disk. I've installed brand new floppy drives
that could not do this. They get returned immediately and exchanged for
another drive. Floppy drives are made so cheaply nowadays that it can be a
bit of a chore to get one that works correctly out of the box.
 
Is the floppy a 720k size rather than 1.4 mb? XP won't format a 720k floppy,
but it ought to be able to read it. Have you tried the floppies in another
computer? If they work elsewhere then there's indeed something wrong with
your floppy drive.

Bill
 
In
Bill Sharpe said:
Is the floppy a 720k size rather than 1.4 mb? XP won't format a 720k
floppy,
Click to expand...


Yes it will, but you have to do it from the command line.
 
Bill Sharpe said:
Is the floppy a 720k size rather than 1.4 mb? XP won't format a 720k
floppy,
but it ought to be able to read it. Have you tried the floppies in another
computer? If they work elsewhere then there's indeed something wrong with
your floppy drive.

Bill
Click to expand...

720k Floppy disk?
Tony do you by chance work for a museum?
:-)
 
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