FAT 3.5inch floppy...HELP!

[bound4h]

I have a 3.5" floppy disk that I believe is formatted using the FAT32 file system. I originally used it on an old computer (33Mhz, ya I know f'in old) and now I want to view it on my NFTS desktop computer. Is there a program or utility that I can use to salvage these files and view them on my desktop without reformatting my whole harddrive or the disk and losing the information?

When I insert the disk into my computer it says "This disk needs to be reformatted. Reformat now?"

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[michaelcoulter]

You could try booting to command prompt and copying the files from the floppy drive to the hard drive (copy a:\*.* c:\temp\*.*)

 

[stduc]

That old!!!!!!!! - it is probably 720k or even less - formatted single sided. It is almost certainly not FAT32 - it is probably FAT - but could be FAT12 or FAT16.

The disk could even be blank or badly corrupted.

You need some third party utility to read it.

Take a look here - it may do the trick?

http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniFlop/OmniFlop.htm#OmniFlop_Overview

 

[vacunita]

Just to clear things up, the fact that your Desktop is formated NTFS is irrelevant. The formatting of a drive does not in any way inhibit the operating system's ability to read another file system format. Which Means WinXP is able to read files from FAT12,FAT16,FAT32 and NTFS with equal ease.

I would have to agree with stduc in that your floppy is formatted very specifically to whatever that machine used.

720 seems about right and that would put it in the realm of FAT12 not FAT32.

In any case it seems your floppy got corrupted somehow.


Follow stducs advise and try a recovery tool on it.



----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[edfair]

A one holer or a 2 holer? One holer is 720.
You can be having a problem reading the floppy if it is a 720. The signal strength isn't as strong coming off a wider track to a narrow head.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.