Computer techie question

[MattP]

I havn't been posting as much as my freelancing has taken off and I am also trying to push through my first novel. Which is what leads to my question. What's the best way to retrieve data from a floppy that has just eaten all of chapter one, and my favorite scenes from chapter 2? It is a PC disk, and now claims to be a Mac disk. Kinda has me a little upset.

 

[ccougill]

maybe you could put it in a MAc and email the files to yourself?

 

[Baz]

Windows will try and default and say you may need to format it, if that happens, it will be lost, but try this, it's worked for us a few times....But not all!
If the disk can be taken out, take it to a PC that has an older OS: 95 or 98 or something, or as ccougill mentioned, put it in a mac even. To a mac or old os, a file is a file, even if it's not recognized as a version of software that pc doesn't have installed.
Then, I would piggy back another hard drive, buy a couple of flash drives, and email yourself often to a web based email account or use online storage of some sort.

 

[jlaird]

Think this stuff can be recovered professionaly, check. It is not expensive to have done.

Only one backup on this kind of works, gesh. work file, backup file on a second hard drive and backup on a thumb drive.

 

[jsneddon]

There are software solutions out there.

just google "recover data from floppy drive"

https://www.gold-software.com/RECOVERFloppyPro-review19490.htm - $21 bucks... which isn't bad I guess.

https://www.sirecovery.com/floppyfix.html
- $45 bucks...

There are some freeware versions around too...

Use at your own risk, NFI on my part, no personal experience with any specific software listed above, etc etc etc....

The old DOS-based Norton Utilities had a tool to recover data from a floppy but finding that is going to be tough and it probably won't run on newer OSes.

Used to be that when floppies were the cheap ubiquitous storage medium we'd put up with sketchy-ness like this because there wasn't a cheap alternative. Now that CDR and USB Flash memory is so cheap you are hard pressed to find anyone still using floppies and you have to go out of your way to even buy a computer that HAS a floppy anymore unless you ask for it.

I know that doesn't help you now... but please consider a different storage medium in the future. Floppies are anything but archival. I give em about 2 years tops. And god-knows how long that box you bought down at the Wal Mart has been sitting in a warehouse at this point. I gave my kid my old floppy based digital camera and dozens of old floppies that were about 3-4 years old. About 50% failed to format and about 75% of the ones that did failed within 3 or 4 uses.

 

[SilentUnicorn]

we still use floppies in the machine shop, even the newer ones are still coming thru with floppy drives. real pain in the but, our IT guy brought us a new box the other day, we sent him back to put a floppy in it...boy did he look confused..LOL


mark

 

[MattP]

I may dump it on a pro's lap, if it is cheap. Just to save time, of which I have precious little.

I didn't lose everything, I have been using two online accounts as offsite storage. I had just gotten lazy one night, and after writing two scenes on chapter 2, I went back and revised the last scene of chapter 1. I really liked what I had, but suddenly the keyboard went all caps without the caps lock being on, and the mouse would select everything it rolled over. I had to use key commands to back out and restart. That's when the disk went hooey.

I have now started dragging my old Phenom palmtop up to work. It saves to CF, and runs rock solid. I still go home and immediately dump the card to my computer and send copies to my online accounts.