Floppy reformatting

[Ron Whitfield]

Some floppys I try to import say they need to be reformatted, but when I try it says the contents will be deleted, how can I safely reformat and upload floppy discs onto my laptop?

[anapuni808]

Re: Floppy reformatting

I'm not an expert but my understanding is that reformatting is for the purpose of erasing the disk contents so you will have a blank disk again.

[Ron Whitfield]

Re: Floppy reformatting

I havn't googled it yet to know my homework, hoping for a magic fix...

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Floppy reformatting

Some floppys I try to import say they need to be reformatted, but when I try it says the contents will be deleted, how can I safely reformat and upload floppy discs onto my laptop?

What's happening is the computer is unable to read the disk. It assumes the disk is corrupt, so it offers to format it so as to create a usable, but blank disk.

I think your only option is to find another floppy drive to read it, and then use some other media for transfer.

Floppies suck. Sometimes I forget how badly they suck.

[zff]

Re: Floppy reformatting

I'm not an expert but my understanding is that reformatting is for the purpose of erasing the disk contents so you will have a blank disk again.

Not exactly.

I apologize to anyone in advance if the following analogy comes across as condescendingly oversimplified. I don't mean it to be that way.

Think of an unformatted floppy as a blank wall where cubbyholes are to be hung. Formatting is the processing of putting up these cubbyholes. It's in these cubbyholes where data will be stored.

In order to illustrate how this system of cubbyholes is significant, I'll bring up old Macs and PCs. Nowadays, Macs can read PC floppies, but it wasn't always like that. Each used to use a different system for cubbyholes that were not compatible with the other.

Back then, if you stuck a PC floppy in a Mac, the Mac would not recognize the PC cubbyhole system and would tell you the floppy is not formatted. It wouldn't tell you the floppy was blank. Blank means there are cubbyholes, but they're all empty. Unformatted means there are no cubbyholes in the first place. In this case, that's not true -- the floppy DOES have cubbyholes, just not ones the Mac recognizes.

The Mac, wanting to being helpful, would ask you if you wanted to format the floppy. If you agreed, it would take down the existing cubbyholes (and all the data in it) and put up a set of its own. This is why formatting deletes all the data on a floppy.

Ok, let's take the Macs out of the picture and just talk about PCs.

Let's say I have a PC named Eddie. (Trust me, giving it a name makes it easier to explain.) Eddie's an old PC, and his floppy drive has drifted out of alignment. This mean's Eddie's cubbyholes are slightly off-kilter. If you had a floppy formatted by Eddie, other PCs may not be able to read it. Eddie also might not be able to read floppies from other PCs. But as long as Eddie is using his own floppies, you may never notice a problem.

A floppy drive falling out of alignment this way is pretty common, especially with older computers. This is probably Ron Whitfield's problem. His seemingly defective floppies were probably last used by an Eddie.

He'll have to find that Eddie and use it to read the data off those floppies. Then find another way to transfer the data off Eddie. You don't actually need all of Eddie, you just need need his floppy drive. You should be able to use it to read the seemingly defective floppies.

That was a bit long-winded, but I hope it was helpful.

[anapuni808]

Re: Floppy reformatting

yeah - I knew that

[helen]

Re: Floppy reformatting

Some floppys I try to import say they need to be reformatted, but when I try it says the contents will be deleted, how can I safely reformat and upload floppy discs onto my laptop?

I havn't googled it yet to know my homework, hoping for a magic fix...

To be honest there is not enough information here to give you any kind of advice other than to say once you reformat those floppies the information on them is gone.

Part of me wants to ask why you are doing this but you know what that is not important.

What is important are the following:
1) These floppies what kind of computer generated them? A Macintosh? A Windows based PC?
2) You didn't say in the base note but what kind of computer are using to read those floppies? A Macintosh? A Windows based PC?
3) Any idea how long ago these floppies were last used? Is there any kind of label on it that indicates what is on the floppy?
4) Are you sure that there is information on these floppies?

[Ron Whitfield]

Re: Floppy reformatting

Part of me wants to ask why you are doing this but you know what that is not important.

What is important are the following:
1) These floppies what kind of computer generated them? A Macintosh? A Windows based PC?
2) You didn't say in the base note but what kind of computer are using to read those floppies? A Macintosh? A Windows based PC?
3) Any idea how long ago these floppies were last used? Is there any kind of label on it that indicates what is on the floppy?
4) Are you sure that there is information on these floppies?

When I started doing computer learning, I used the floppys to save pix and such, now I have the set up to upload the contents and am having some success, but some discs don't wanna play. They were all grab and use, no idea about them other than they were available free.

1-Windows
2- ''
3/4-10 yrs. I noted the contents.

[helen]

Re: Floppy reformatting

Is the floppy drive being used also 10 years old or is that a kind of a new piece of hardware?

[lensperson]

Re: Floppy reformatting

Be careful as reformatting often means losing all of the memories ,that is files , one has stored on ones computer. In unix there is a command called dd. It translates to data dump.

[Ron Whitfield]

Re: Floppy reformatting

It's merely an outboard unit with a usb cord, probably 10 yrs. old too.
I guess reformatting is the wrong term for me to use, but it shouldn't be really so hard just to upload these things, eh?

[lensperson]

Re: Floppy reformatting

Floppy drives are the oldest form of computer storage that still have large scale support at a software and hardware level. The little drives are sometimes the only way to boot up an errant system or two.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Floppy reformatting

This is why I keep a windows 3.1 PC as well as a IBM DOS Warp OS2 computers around.