Bramble... do you have XP? Those "jump drives" or "data sticks" or whatever you want to call them are great... they just plug into your USB port and away you go... I have a 128 meg one that only cost $29... it holds as much as about 88 'floppies'... they're a great investment if you're moving stuff around...
If it was working a day ago, something must have happened. Typical scenarios are
1 - physical damage - you'd probably see this, becaues the slidey thing on the case won't slide or the disk inside won't spin freely. If the case is damaged but not the actual disk inside you can perhaps rescue the disk and put it in another case. By "you" I mean someone who's familiar with this process whether they actually reside in your body or not.
2 - operator error. Some elves came in in the middle of the night and reformated your disk (unlikely given the error you mentioned) You (sorry, I mean the elves) would have been prompted about "Do you really want to do this"
3 - magnetic damage. the disk got to close to a magnetic source (refrigerator magnet, audio speaker or something) and got wacked. In this case perhaps an disk salvage operation can recover your data if it's valuable enough. These services are not cheap and are usually done on hard drives. Cost is hundereds to thousands of dollars.
4 - best for last - your floppy disk is OK but the drive is broken. If it reads other floppies than this is not true, but if you haven't tried other floppies do so.
I agree with Tom. You shouldn't use floppy disks for anything. It's like trying to do math problems in Roman numerals -- difficult, unnecessary, and prone to problems. CDs are extremely cheap, and the small USB drives are as well, both of which hold a lot more. It's also good to keep copies of important files on your hard drive and back it up to somewhere else via the internet.
But I did get a message from a famous author (Mercedes Lackey) who has had it happen to her. She paid the big bucks to recover it, but then. she has big bucks!
Get a known good disk, maybe a new one - format it and copy som data to it. If it works the drive is good and the old disks are bad. If not, the drive is probably bad.
I had 100's of disks that went bad in storage. Heat will destroy them.
Data sticks, pen drives, USB keychain drives.... damn I wish they would standardize on a name already. :D-->
Those are awesome, a breakthrough invention. It is really catching on. I have been using them for a couple years. They make them up to 4GB now! Some day they will have 20 GB ones, you know it.
But beware of those too. They are not infallible like I thought they were. You data can get corrupted. Though they have no moving parts they can go bad. As always, back up if you store sensitive data on them. You can lose it.
Floppys are dead. Dell does not even ship floppys anymore. Why even install one in a computer? Just leave them out. One less thing to break. Obsolete, as are Zip drives.
If you think you may need a floppy some day just do like I did and pick up one of those external floppys that you can plug into a USB port. You can use it from computer to computer.
I hope your internet back-up uses a strong encryption scheme. Otherwise, you're trusting the ISP not to reveal your data.
USB "drives" cannot be used with just any computer!!! Even if a computer has USB ports, if the operating system (OS) it's running doesn't support USB (ie. Win95, WinNT thru ver 4.0, many versions of Linux/Unix, DOS, OS2, etc...) the USB "drive" won't work. In those cases, a floppy or a parallel Zip drive would often work fine.
Floppies are beginning to fade in the most updated computers though. They hold so little data that it really isn't worth the expense or the space it takes to store them properly. Especially when you can burn over 700 1.44Mb floppies onto 1 standard CD... Now where did I put that archive CD anyway... :o-->
USB "drives" cannot be used with just any computer!!! Even if a computer has USB ports, if the operating system (OS) it's running doesn't support USB (ie. Win95, WinNT thru ver 4.0, many versions of Linux/Unix, DOS, OS2, etc...) the USB "drive" won't work. In those cases, a floppy or a parallel Zip drive would often work fine.
I know that USB works with Linux. It may not be quite as easy as the plug and play abilities of XP, but standard things definitely work. All in all, I'd say that if someone is still using MS-DOS or Windows 95, they should have upgraded by now. They're still riding in a horse and buggy while everyone else is driving cars.
Oh Zix... his math was just a little off... they hold over 700 mb though don't they? But the little "jump drive" (as the manufacturer calls it) that I have is great! Like I said, 128mb for only $29!
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Steve!
No, Bramble, you didn't break it.
It just wore out. It got old.
The data on it went to bit heaven.
Wave byebye, give the diskette a decent burial.
Start saving things on a data stick, or a tape backup, or a CD.
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Bramble
Waaah! It is what I--gulp--feared!!
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Tom Strange
Bramble... do you have XP? Those "jump drives" or "data sticks" or whatever you want to call them are great... they just plug into your USB port and away you go... I have a 128 meg one that only cost $29... it holds as much as about 88 'floppies'... they're a great investment if you're moving stuff around...
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My3Cents
If it was working a day ago, something must have happened. Typical scenarios are
1 - physical damage - you'd probably see this, becaues the slidey thing on the case won't slide or the disk inside won't spin freely. If the case is damaged but not the actual disk inside you can perhaps rescue the disk and put it in another case. By "you" I mean someone who's familiar with this process whether they actually reside in your body or not.
2 - operator error. Some elves came in in the middle of the night and reformated your disk (unlikely given the error you mentioned) You (sorry, I mean the elves) would have been prompted about "Do you really want to do this"
3 - magnetic damage. the disk got to close to a magnetic source (refrigerator magnet, audio speaker or something) and got wacked. In this case perhaps an disk salvage operation can recover your data if it's valuable enough. These services are not cheap and are usually done on hard drives. Cost is hundereds to thousands of dollars.
4 - best for last - your floppy disk is OK but the drive is broken. If it reads other floppies than this is not true, but if you haven't tried other floppies do so.
Sorry I haven't got better news.
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Mister P-Mosh
I agree with Tom. You shouldn't use floppy disks for anything. It's like trying to do math problems in Roman numerals -- difficult, unnecessary, and prone to problems. CDs are extremely cheap, and the small USB drives are as well, both of which hold a lot more. It's also good to keep copies of important files on your hard drive and back it up to somewhere else via the internet.
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Bramble
I suspect it was (3) magnetic damage.
I will be ever so careful from now on.
But I did get a message from a famous author (Mercedes Lackey) who has had it happen to her. She paid the big bucks to recover it, but then. she has big bucks!
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Goey
Get a known good disk, maybe a new one - format it and copy som data to it. If it works the drive is good and the old disks are bad. If not, the drive is probably bad.
I had 100's of disks that went bad in storage. Heat will destroy them.
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igotout
Data sticks, pen drives, USB keychain drives.... damn I wish they would standardize on a name already.
:D-->
Those are awesome, a breakthrough invention. It is really catching on. I have been using them for a couple years. They make them up to 4GB now! Some day they will have 20 GB ones, you know it.
But beware of those too. They are not infallible like I thought they were. You data can get corrupted. Though they have no moving parts they can go bad. As always, back up if you store sensitive data on them. You can lose it.
Floppys are dead. Dell does not even ship floppys anymore. Why even install one in a computer? Just leave them out. One less thing to break. Obsolete, as are Zip drives.
If you think you may need a floppy some day just do like I did and pick up one of those external floppys that you can plug into a USB port. You can use it from computer to computer.
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Bramble
Thanks for all the advice.
I want to look into getting a pen drive--several people recommended that, and I now have an internet backup, so phew!
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Technobyte
Bramble,
I hope your internet back-up uses a strong encryption scheme. Otherwise, you're trusting the ISP not to reveal your data.
USB "drives" cannot be used with just any computer!!! Even if a computer has USB ports, if the operating system (OS) it's running doesn't support USB (ie. Win95, WinNT thru ver 4.0, many versions of Linux/Unix, DOS, OS2, etc...) the USB "drive" won't work. In those cases, a floppy or a parallel Zip drive would often work fine.
Floppies are beginning to fade in the most updated computers though. They hold so little data that it really isn't worth the expense or the space it takes to store them properly. Especially when you can burn over 700 1.44Mb floppies onto 1 standard CD... Now where did I put that archive CD anyway...
:o-->
Technobyte
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Mister P-Mosh
I know that USB works with Linux. It may not be quite as easy as the plug and play abilities of XP, but standard things definitely work. All in all, I'd say that if someone is still using MS-DOS or Windows 95, they should have upgraded by now. They're still riding in a horse and buggy while everyone else is driving cars.
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Zixar
(700 x 1.44 = 1,008.)
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Tom Strange
Oh Zix... his math was just a little off... they hold over 700 mb though don't they? But the little "jump drive" (as the manufacturer calls it) that I have is great! Like I said, 128mb for only $29!
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igotout
What is Windows 95?
:D--> 
:D-->
Been so long I think I forgot.
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