Can I fix floppy disk errors?

Question

A few days ago I put some pictures on a floppy disk and they viewed fine on "Slide Show"( my picture viewer). Today I tried viewing them again and on both my camera and computer it said "disk error", and no pictures show. Is there any way to fix this?
It also says that the disk is not formatted, but I took pictures and viewed them so it must have been formatted. Is there any way to format again without losing the pictures?
Thanks :)

Answer 1

A floppy is a very fragile and small memory device. Almost anything can cause data to be erased. If you are having issues the best thing to do is to run a disk check or "scan disk." This is a utility on most computers that will run a check of the disk that you specify and try to fix issues or let you know if you have bad sections on the disk.



Here is how you do it:

Double click on your My Computer icon. (Usually found on the desktop)

Put your floppy into the drive

Right click on the floppy drive

-You will get a drop down menu; select properties

A window will pop up and at the top you will see tabs; such as: General, tools, hardware.

Click on the Tools tab and select "error checking"

Check both boxes to try and fix the problem and recover bad sectors.



Then click start or okay. Let it do its thing and hopefully it will solve the problem. If not there really isn't anything that you can do to recover the data, and if you format the disk you will wipe it clean and no data will be on it at all.

Answer 2

This problem is caused by the lack of a media descriptor byte on the floppy disk.

If the program viewing the disk does not look for this byte, then you can view the pictures, if it does look for it and cannot find it, then you get this error.

You could fix the problem by using a disk sector editor to change the byte to the correct value. This is akin to editing the registry on your computer, where a mistake can cause major problems.

Formatting would, unfortunately, remove the pictures, but would make the disk usable again.

Answer 3

Simple solution: GET A USB DRIVE

A floppy disk is only 1.44mb per disk, their un-reliable and not many computers have floppy drives these days, look at amazon.com and you can find 512mb usb flash drives for $2 and buy one - their more useful and more reliable.



If you format the floppy disk again, everything that was on it, will be gone (if it isn't already).

Answer 4

A floppy disk question!!! I thought they were extinct! I haven't used them in at least 8 years, probably more. They are and were unreliable. The tech in them is subject to dust and tiny bits. Cleaning your drive is mandatory for a first step. You MAY be able read it then. Don't count on it. If you do luck out and are able to read it, quickly copy the images to a more reliable storage medium, like a CD or hard drive.



You might try it in another system's drive if the above didn't work. Again, clean the drive first.



Good luck.

Answer 5

aside form the obvious need to upgrade your portable storage situation, I need to inform you that those images are no longer.



The floppy drive is not only inferior to the usb thumb drive in maximum capacity, but also in security.



The floppy drive is very easily erased by magnetism. this wasn't an issue ten years ago because we didn't have a lot of magnets on our persons back then.



Today we have one giant one in the purse or our pockets. I am of course talking about cell phones. I have seen countless times, people coming to my tutoring room asking me why their term paper can't be rescued. of course they have a cell phone right on top of the disk and I have to tell them that their paper is gone and they need to invest in a usb thumb drive, similar to your situation no?





The usb drive is not susceptible to magnetism and is much more durable than the floppies, plus they can hold tens of thousands of times the amount of information for cheaper.



Hope this helps

Answer 6

Open your computer and check that all the cables are firmly attached to your hard drive. If that does not cure the problem, replace the hard drive and reinstall your operating system.