xp reports that my floppy disc needs formatted error

[techidave]

I am sure everyone has come across this problem at one time or another.  You put a floppy disc in the drive and then get that dreaded error, " the disk is not formatted would you like to format it now".  I have been scouring the net looking for answers, software, etc as well as searching here on the dc forum.

Is there any tried and true method for recovering the data?  Some recommend using a Win98 machine to read it but I haven't had much luck with that either.

Inquiring minds wanna know 

P.S.  I am fully aware of the danger in using floppies to store important data on.  But its hard to get users to convert to flash drives or cds.

[Shades]

The problem with floppies (most of the time) is that they have to be used in floppy drives. So many issues arise with floppies because of head alignment differences between drives. Which is why so many people abandoned those floppies at the first chance they had (ZIP drives anyone?).

It is easier to go back to the machine with the data that was stored on the floppy and take/lend/give an USB memory stick or (USB) CD/DVD burner or USB harddisk to put the data on one of those mediums. My suggestion assumes that the data is on the original system and then copied to floppy.

If that is not the case...

Accessing the floppy on a different computer in your care is not possible? Or maybe go even lower by accessing the floppy directly without using Windows and its ways to access the floppy. Likely there is software there for this purpose. In the days when the Commodore 64 was king I had such a piece of software. When I was in that 'scene'  it was always a nice boost for your ego when you see a disk from a stranger...with your personal ascii art embedded into its file listing.

So, if the humble C64 was able to do that, than there has to be software for 'those damn IBM clones' as well 

[techidave]

Thanks for the reply Shades.  Since I am the computer guru for the local school district, people come to me for answers to their problems.  This is one problem I have never found a good answer for.    Usually I think, they only do one copy and unfortunately... it is on the floppy disk.  Personally I hardly ever use a floppy anymore.  I would rather take my chances with the hard drive failing. 

I usually do try it in another computer but without luck.  I should setup a Win98 computer for these cases.

Go lower than windows...hmmm its been a while since I did stuff in DOS.

[Shades]

Hmm, looks like I found a piece of software that should be able to read floppies that show the feared message. Even HP seems to host a low-level tool for floppies. Both are not free, but the software from the first link has a trial period of 30 days or 100 runs.

[40hz]

I've had good luck with Jufsoft's BadCopy:

http://www.jufsoft.com/badcopy

It costs about $40. There is a evaluation download that won't recover anything - but it will let you know if it is possible to recover your files. To do actual recoveries you'll need to purchase the full product.

Not cheap, but it comes with a money-back guarantee:

Why does BadCopy Pro have limits in evaluation/trial version?


    Usually, most data recovery utilities are only used once. The BadCopy Pro evaluation version checks your disk and data to see whether the restoration is possible. If it is, then purchasing the product allows you to restore and save the recovered files.

    If you purchase the software, but it does not restore a file as the evaluation version indicates, we will refund your money or help you by providing a FREE manual fix on the file.

    Please note that once you purchase BadCopy Pro, you can use the product for an unlimited number of times. BadCopy Pro is not a one-time product. Also, you can get free upgrades for all BadCopy Pro v3.x releases. You may continue to use this powerful, smart utility to solve kinds of disk or data problems in the future.

Luck!

[techidave]

Hmm, looks like I found a piece of software that should be able to read floppies that show the feared message. Even HP seems to host a low-level tool for floppies. Both are not free, but the software from the first link has a trial period of 30 days or 100 runs.

IMHO, this software probably won't work for me. It seems the Embird software is for an embroidery machine that will convert to different embroidery formats.  The Hp software is for SCSI floppy devices.  I have a couple of old servers that have SCSI hard drives but don't know about the floppies on them.  I could fire them up and see if it would work.