ok, i think some a$$ at work did something to my floppy disk while i was off yesterday

i keep my whole customer database on a floppy disk and back it up once a month at home

i was using the disk on saturday

i went to put some stuff on it today, and it says that the disk has not been formatted

if someone erased the disk, is there a way to recover the files that were on it

i can recreate the files, but would take me forever

 

floppy are very seceptable to EMI or magnets earsing them. and there isnt really any way to recover the data. but see if ti still says that on another computer sometimes floppy drives on computer can act up and tell u it needs to be formatted.

 

98% chance your screwed. Your *only* option is to take the disk to the last machine it was in and try to read it. If it does read the disk, copy the data off of it and try another disk. If not, your screwed. Never save critical data on floppies. Why does this happen? Old/different floppy drives can have a slightly different head alignment... moving one floppy around to different PCs, you'll eventually get one that either A. Can't read it due to the mis-alignment or B. F it up due to its alignment.

Or, your bastard co-worker may have placed an unshielded speaker, telephone, etc.. near/on the disk and erased it completely.

You always have the option to call a data recovery service, pay an obscene amount of money and get your data...

 

Floppy disk? Say what? Is that anything like my flash storage keychain?

 

Yeah really, get out of the stone age would ya

In any case, I doubt your co-workers are screwing with you. As has been mentioned, floppy disks are very susceptible to magnetic interference and can become corrupt very easily.

Your best bet is to try it in the last machine you used like dzervit said.

 

Do you store the floppy any where near a florescent desk lamp. I used to have one at my computer desk, and started having problems with floppies. The ballast on the lamps will kill floppies.
You may be able to recover something with software such as Undelete or other file recovery software. No guarantee. Good luck.

 

i know this doesn't help now, but run out to Best Buy or somewhere and spend a few dollars on a Thumb Drive. They are fairly cheap and can hold tons more data than a Floppy. My policy at work is never put data on a floppy anymore unless you can afford to lose it. Plus Thumb Drives rarely go bad on you. I can only think of one or two in the past couple of years that I have seen go bad, and that was due to poor handeling.

 

I had an old version of Norton Disk Doctor that did some amazing saves of Floppies. Maybe ebay for an old version and see if that helps.

When I say old...I don't mean 2002, I mean back when they were Version X.XX

I might still have a copy laying around you can have if you really need it.

Not much hope though.....

 

You can try this....

right click on the A: drive (with the floppy in question in there)

hit "properties"

select "tools" tab

Hit the "check now" button under error checking

I've had this work for me before


More than likely you're screwed. Floppies are not only suseptable to interference, but they get currupted very easily. Use a USB flash drive or USB hard drive if you're wanting more secure and mobile storage. That, and backup more often.

 

Here's some software you might want to try. You can even download the demo and try it.
http://www.stellarinfo.com/recovery-software.htm